REU: How Plant Architecture Mediates Interactions Between Herbivorous Insects and Their Predators

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This research will examine the influence of plant architecture on a predator-prey interactions involving ladybugs and aphids. The hypothesis is that by altering how searching predators move between plants, plant architecture can markedly affect the impact of those predators on prey populations. This study is made possible by the availability of mutant strains of peas that possess strikingly different architectures. The investigation will include: observations of individual ladybugs, data collection on how populations of ladybugs redistribute themselves with respect to patchily dispersed pea aphids, studies of population change in ladybug-aphid associations over moderate time periods (3-6 weeks), and the development of behavior-based models that extrapolate individual behavior to population dynamics. As a bonus, the two ladybug species, Coccinella septempuncta and Hippodamia variegata, will soon be introduced en masse to the State of Washington by the USDA. The background information on their foraging biology that will be obtained should help understand these "invading organisms" when they are released throughout Washington.