Association Between Goldenrod Plant Traits and Gall Presence

Abstract:
Gall-inducing insects use plant tissues as both habitat and nutrition, making plant morphology a potential mediator of gall attack risk. In goldenrod (Solidago spp.), the ball gall fly (Eurosta solidaginis) and several cecidomyiid midges induce galls at different stem positions, but it remains unclear whether plant structural traits influence which stems are selected. In this study, we tested whether stem height, inflorescence presence, or inflorescence length were associated with gall presence using a class-collected dataset of goldenrod stems.