Our goal was describe the gall richness through the characterization of their external shapes and occurrence patterns in their host plants from Parque Estadual da Serra do Cabral. In a universe of 34 families, 64 genera and 89 plant species, 47 gall-inducing insects in 21 families, 32 genera and 39 host plant species were recorded. The families, which hosted higher gall richness, were those with highest abundance. Asteraceae represented 33% of the species collected followed by Malpighiaceae 8% and Fabaceae 8%, each one concentrating 25%, 19% and 8% of gall-inducing insects, respectively. The organ most attacked was the leaf (51%), followed by the stem (42%) and the terminal branch (4%). Ninety-six percent (96%) of galls were glabrous. Only 25.5% of the galls described in our study have been already recorded in previous studies, reinforcing the need to increase the sampling effort toward a better understanding of the richness, distribution, and natural history of gall-inducing insects from Brazil.
biodiversity; biogeography; herbivore; host plant; insect-plant interaction