Galls of Diplolepis variabilis (Bassett) (Hymenoptera:
Cynipidae) on their host plant Rosa woodsii Lindley
(Rosaceae) support a diverse community of parasitoid and inquiline wasps
that exploit the gall inducer and the gall itself. Here, we studied
quantitative variation in local structure of the gall community in the
Okanagan Valley of southern British Columbia, Canada, from the United States
border north, to test the hypothesis that dispersal limitation would
generate a distance decay in gall community similarity. We also explored
gall community richness in relation to latitude, as the northern range limit
of the gall inducer occurs within our study area. We found that gall
communities exhibited strikingly similar composition across the study
region, with most of the major inquilines and parasitoids present across the
gall's range. However, the increased richness of rare parasitoid taxa near
the northern range limits of D. variabilis generated a
marginally significant positive relationship between gall community richness
and latitude. Overall, our study suggests that dispersal constraints do not
influence the composition of the Diplolepis Geoffroy gall
community at regional scales, and that gall communities offer useful models
for studying the association between community structure and range
limits.