U.S.-France Cooperative Research: Responses of the Fig- Pollinator Mutualism to Environmental Constraints

这个为期三年的奖项支持迈阿密大学的Doyle B. McKey和法国蒙彼利埃生态学和进化生态学中心的Finn Kjellberg在生态学方面的合作研究。目的是研究昆虫-植物共同进化的经典案例之一：无花果和授粉黄蜂的相互作用。为了维持无花果和黄蜂的共生关系，传粉者黄蜂需要像热带环境一样全年开花的树木。研究人员在可能破坏稳定的季节性环境中解决了无花果/黄蜂的共生关系，如在佛罗里达州和地中海法国发现的更北部的亚热带气候。他们将进行平行实验，以表征黄蜂对物候的反应、单个无花果的接受性以及黄蜂对无花果的行为和化学吸引力。合作安排使调查人员能够汇集互补的专门知识并获得可比的结果。迈阿密和蒙彼利埃都是研究无花果/黄蜂共生对季节限制的反应的理想地点。由于榕蜂共生是研究许多共同进化问题的模型系统，本研究的结果将对共同进化的研究做出重大贡献。

This three-year award supports U.S.-France cooperative research in ecology between Doyle B. McKey, University of Miami, and Finn Kjellberg, at the Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Ecology, Montpellier, France. The objective is to study interactions in one of the classic cases of insect-plant coevolution: figs and pollinating wasps. For fig/wasp mutualism to persist, the pollinator wasps require flowering trees year-round as in tropical environments. The investigators address fig/wasp mutualism in potentially destabilizing seasonal environments as in more northern, subtropical climes found in Florida and mediterranean France. They will conduct parallel experiments to characterize wasp response to phenology, receptivity of individual figs and wasp behavior and chemical attraction to figs. The collaborative arrangements enable the investigators to pool complementary expertise and obtain comparable results. Both Miami and Montpellier are ideal locations to investigate the responses of fig/wasp mutualism to seasonal constraints. Because fig/wasp mutualism is a model system for studying many questions about co-evolution, the results from this study will make a major contribution to co-evolutionary studies in general.