Rise and Fall of an Oak Gall Wasp (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) Outbreak in Massachusetts

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 1277-1285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron J Smith-Freedman ◽  
Jeremy C Andersen ◽  
Brian P Griffin ◽  
Katherine Schick ◽  
Joseph S Elkinton
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Population Size ◽  
First Record ◽  
Cape Cod ◽  
Woody Tissue ◽  
Gall Wasp ◽  
Martha's Vineyard ◽  
Parasitism Rates ◽  
Martha’S Vineyard ◽  
Black Oak

Abstract The recently described oak gall wasp Zapatella davisae Buffington & Melika (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) has caused extensive damage and mortality to black oak trees, Quercus velutina L. (Fagales: Fagaceae), in coastal parts of New England, United States. Like many newly described and/or newly introduced species, it is unclear how long populations of Z. davisae have existed in this region. However, as this species forms galls on the woody-tissue of its host, it may be possible to obtain historical information about changes in its population size by examining the presence of galls in relation to annual growth nodes. Here, we explore the utility of this approach to determine population size changes in Z. davisae densities on Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, through dissection of black oak branches. In addition, we calculated parasitism rates during the years of study and obtained morphological and molecular identifications for the parasitoids associated with Z. davisae. Our results show significant changes in population sizes, with higher levels of parasitism at sites on Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod compared to sites on Nantucket. In addition, morphological examinations, in combination with DNA sequencing, identified the associated parasitoids as five species in the genus Sycophila Walker (Hymenoptera: Eurytomidae). We comment that considerable morphological variation within several of these recovered species was observed, present the first record of males for a species from which only females have been described, and suggest that future work is required to clarify the species boundaries for this important parasitoid group.

Cosmogenic-nuclide ages for New England coastal moraines, Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA

2002 ◽  
Vol 21 (20-22) ◽  
pp. 2127-2135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Balco ◽  
John O.H. Stone ◽  
Stephen C. Porter ◽  
Marc W. Caffee
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Cape Cod ◽  
Martha's Vineyard ◽  
Cosmogenic Nuclide ◽  
Martha’S Vineyard

Vernacular American Landscape: Methodists, Camp Meetings, and Social Respectability

1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Robins
Keyword(s):  
Cape Cod ◽  
Church Members ◽  
White Mountains ◽  
Martha's Vineyard ◽  
Home State ◽  
American Landscape ◽  
Camp Meetings ◽  
Martha’S Vineyard ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
The Church

In 1822, from his Conway home in the shadow of New Hampshire's White Mountains, one Dr. Porter surveyed the nation's religious landscape and prophesied, “in half a century there will be no Pagans, Jews, Mohammedans, Unitarians or Methodists.” The prophecy proved false on all counts, but it was most glaringly false in the case of the Methodists. In less than a decade, Porter's home state became the eighth to elect a Methodist governor. Should Porter have fled south into Massachusetts to escape the rising Methodist tide, he would only have been buying time. True, the citizens of Provincetown, Massachusetts, had, in 1795, razed a Methodist meetinghouse and tarred and feathered a Methodist in effigy. By 1851, however, the Methodists boasted a swelling Cape Cod membership, a majority of the church members on Martha's Vineyard, and a governor in the Massachusetts statehouse.

Development of microsatellite markers for an outbreaking species of oak gall wasp, Zapatella davisae (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae), in the northeastern United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
pp. 510-517
Author(s):  
J.C. Andersen ◽  
C.P. Camp ◽  
M.J. Davis ◽  
N.P. Havill ◽  
J.S. Elkinton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Microsatellite Markers ◽  
Cape Cod ◽  
Northeastern United States ◽  
Gall Wasp ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Quercus Velutina ◽  
Limited Sampling ◽  
Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium ◽  
Black Oak

AbstractPopulations of the recently described black oak gall wasp, Zapatella davisae Buffington (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae), have been identified as the cause of extensive tree damage and mortality to black oaks, Quercus velutina Lamarck (Fagales: Fagaceae), in the northeastern United States. Relatively little is known, however, about the distribution, phylogenetic placement, and lifecycle of this important tree pest. Therefore, we conducted next-generation sequencing using the Ion Torrent™ PGM (ThermoFisher Scientific, Inc.) platform to develop genomic resources for the study of Z. davisae and for other closely related species of oak gall wasps. Individual sequence reads were aligned, assembled into unique contigs, and the contigs were then utilized for the in silico isolation and development of microsatellite markers. In total, we screened 36 candidate microsatellite loci, of which 23 amplified consistently (five polymorphic and 18 monomorphic). We then examined whether the polymorphic loci could be used to infer whether populations of Z. davisae from Cape Cod and Nantucket are sexual or asexual by calculating several metrics of genetic diversity that might indicate the mode of reproduction. These included testing for statistical deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) and for linkage disequilibrium (LD), observations for the presence of the Meselson effect, and by calculating the probability that clonal individuals are more prevalent than would be expected in a randomly mating population. While we found significant deviations from HWE and more clonal individuals than expected, our estimates of the Meselson effect were inconclusive due to limited sampling, and we found no evidence of LD. Therefore, the sexual/asexual status of Z. davisae populations remains uncertain.

“The Names of the Rivers”: A New Look at an Old Document

2007 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-487
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Martha's Vineyard ◽  
Martha’S Vineyard ◽  
New Look

Analyzing a mysterious, early-seventeenth-century description of the New England coast from Maine to Martha's Vineyard, the essay provides information about Native American sachems, suggests insights into the means by which explorers exchanged information, and offers an interpretation of Martin Pring's landing.

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