Gall Wasps

I’ve been sending Cynipid galls to the Forbes Lab at the University of Iowa. They’re doing a genetic sequencing project on these oak gall wasps. (Here’s is a great introduction to this fascinating lifestyle.) But since these are appealing structures, other animals want in as well: inquilines may or may not crowd out or kill the wasp larvae within; there’s a group of cynipids that can’t make galls, so they invade others; and there are more directly parasitoid wasps, attacking the larvae within and taking over the structure. (In short, you can’t be sure of what will emerge.)