Dissertation Research: A Pollinator Mediated Plant- Pathogen Interaction

白丝兰是一种路边开花植物，它会感染一种由真菌引起的寄生虫病。除了使植物不育外，这种疾病还会导致雄性和雌性植物都产生带有充满真菌孢子的花药囊的花。为健康的白丝莲授粉的昆虫也会访问患病的花朵，从而成为这种疾病的媒介。本研究采用野外观测、实验和数学建模相结合的方法，探讨了昆虫传粉媒介对白硅白菌与真菌相互作用的影响。在植物-媒介-病原体相互作用的研究中，没有研究将媒介的行为成分纳入系统动力学建模中。在这项研究中，病媒也是植物的传粉者，这是开始研究病媒行为如何影响植物与病原体相互作用的理想场所。传粉者行为对植物种群动态影响的大量文献可以用来建立植物-传粉者/媒介-病原体相互作用的模型。这项研究的结果将对研究植物媒介-病原体系统的流行病学家以及研究个体行为对种群和群落动态影响的进化生态学家感兴趣。

Silene alba, a flowering plant found along roadsides, can become infected with a parasitic disease, caused by a fungus. In addition to rendering the plants sterile, this disease causes both male and female plants to produce flowers with anther sacs filled with spores of the fungus. The insects which pollinate healthy Silene alba also visit diseased flowers, thus acting as vectors of this disease. This study attempts to show how the behavior of the insect pollinator/vector influences the plant-pathogen interaction between Silene alba and the fungus by using an approach which combines field observations, experimentation, and mathematical modeling. No studies of plant-vector-pathogen interactions have included the behavioral component of the vector in modeling the dynamics of the system. This study in which the disease vector is also the pollinator of the plant is an ideal place to begin an investigation of how vector behavior affects a plant-pathogen interaction. The voluminous literature on the effect of pollinator behavior on plant population dynamics can be drawn upon to develop models in this plant-pollinator/vector-pathogen interaction. The results of this study will be of interest to epidemioligists working in plant-vector-pathogen systems as well as to evolutionary ecologists working on the effects of individual behavior on population and community dynamics.