Study species
Ruellia nudiflora (Engelm. & A.Gray) Urb. (Acanthaceae) is a
perennial herb native to Texas (Turner, 1991), commonly found in urban
and rural areas (Fig. 1), with a wide distribution from southern United
States to southern Mexico and Central America (Tripp, 2007). It is a
self-compatible species that produces flowers with open corolla
(chasmogamous), allowing outcrossing by insect pollination, and flowers
with closed corolla (cleistogamous), preventing outcrossing (Tripp,
2007). Common herbivores include the leaf-eating caterpillarsAnartia jatrophae and Siproeta stelenes (Nymphalidae)
(Ortegón-Campos et al. 2009), and the seed predatorTripudia paraplesia (Noctuidae; Abdala-Roberts et al.,2016), which in turn is attacked by several parasitoid species from
three wasp families (Braconidae: four species, Ichneumonidae: one
specie, Pteromalidae: two species) and one fly species (Tachinidae)
(Abdala-Roberts et al. , 2016). Ant-aphid interactions have also
been observed on R. nudiflora in both rural and urban areas
(pers. obs.). Studies on the R. nudiflora -AMF interaction have
found that the average colonization rate by AMF is 52%, and this
association has a positive effect on growth rate and plant fitness
(Ramos-Zapata et al. , 2010; Mejía-Alva et al. , 2018), as
well as an increase in plant cover and a reduction of attacked fruits by
seed predators (Mejía-Alva et al. , 2018). Previous research has
studied the effect of soil conditions on R. nudiflora fitness and
found a significant effect on survival (Ortegón-Campos et al. ,
2012). All this information shows that R. nudiflora is a plant
facing a complex multispecific environment (herbivores, third-trophic
level, AMF interactions) which can drive adaptive evolution; however,
there is a lack of studies evaluating the effect of urban conditions onR. nudiflora and its ecological interactions.