ABR-Quantitative Aspects of Prey Chemical Defenses

该项目将扩展PI目前对海藻-食草动物和无脊椎动物-捕食者相互作用的化学调解的研究，包括：(1)猎物营养价值与猎物化学和结构防御的复杂相互作用；(2)了解幼虫和孢子的防御与成虫的防御有何不同，以及为什么（暴露于不同的消费者）？在没有遮阳结构的情况下，暴露在紫外线下的时间增加了？(3)脊椎动物和无脊椎动物的习得性厌恶在影响猎物和消费者动态方面的作用。由于底栖海藻和无脊椎动物在近岸群落中发挥着重要的营养和生态作用，并且是新型次级代谢物的丰富来源，这些代谢物具有抵御消费者的功能，并具有作为药物，农用化学品和生长调节物质的潜在应用，了解这些生物如何对生态和环境威胁作出化学反应，可以提供有关海洋系统如何运作的基本信息，并可以为海洋天然产品的应用利用提出策略。

This project will extend the PI's current investigations on chemical mediation of seaweed-herbivore and invertebrate-predator interactions to include: (1) complex interactions of prey nutritional value with chemical and structural prey defenses, (2) an understanding of how larval and spore defenses differ from those of the adult, and why (exposure to different consumers?, increased exposure to UV without adult structures that provide shade?, etc.), and (3) the role of learned aversion by vertebrate versus invertebrate consumers in affecting both prey and consumer dynamics. Because benthic seaweeds and invertebrates play a trophically and ecologically important role in near-shore communities and are rich sources of novel secondary metabolites that function as defenses against consumers and have potential applications as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and growth regulating substances, understanding how these organisms respond chemically to ecological and environmental threats can provide fundamental information about how marine systems function, and can suggest strategies for applied uses of marine natural products.