MCF: Ecology and Evolution of Nectar-feeding Bats and Columnar Cacti

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The Principal Investigator will spend the 1992-93 academic year in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona conducting field work on the ecology and evolution of nectarivorous bat-cactus interactions in the Sonoran desert. Two hypotheses will be examined in this research: (1) the phylogeography of the migratory nectar-feeding bat Leptonycterid curasoae conforms to the type I pattern of Avise et al. (1987): there should be strong phylogenetic continuity within subspecies and a strong genetic separation between subspecies; northern migrants of the Mexican species represent a random draw from southern populations and (2) sex ratios in the trioecious, bat- pollinated cactus Pachycereus pringlei vary geographically with the proportion of females in populations being positively correlated with the availability of nectarivorous bats. The P.I. will use mtDNA techniques to test the first hypothesis and observational techniques to test the second hypothesis. When not in the field he P.I. will work in the Laboratory of Molecular Evolution and Molecular Systematics to learn molecular techniques (e.g. mtDNA and cpDNA restriction site analysis) and methods of phylogenetic analysis. These techniques are essential for future studies of the historical ecology of bat-plant interactions in New World desert ecosystems.