Collaborative Research: Comparative Breeding Structure of Four Species of Sonoran Desert Columnar Cactus

小行星9420254 北美索诺兰沙漠的柱状仙人掌提供了一个很好的机会来分析植物如何与它们的传粉者相互作用，以产生其种群特征的交配模式。 待研究的四种仙人掌中的每一种都有一组共同的传粉者（即蝙蝠，鸟类，昆虫）访问的大而开放的花朵。 我们将建立排除处理，以确保单个花朵由单一传粉者类型授粉。 在多个基因位置的遗传分析，然后将被用来描述每个授粉仙人掌物种组合的育种结构。 这些分析将使我们能够确定不同的传粉者如何分配单个仙人掌物种的花粉，并将导致每个传粉者对每个仙人掌物种的整体育种结构的相对重要性的基本了解。 了解不同的传粉者在这些主要植物物种的繁殖中所起的作用，将有助于更有效地管理沙漠保护区。 例如，确定蝙蝠可以长距离传播花粉，得出的结论是，保护蝙蝠栖息地（可能在保护区之外）是维持仙人掌种群遗传多样性的一个重要组成部分。 如果我们发现大部分的有效授粉是由一个单一的传粉者物种为每一个仙人掌物种，。这个传粉者的维护将是必不可少的一个单独的仙人掌物种的繁殖和索诺兰沙漠社区的整体完整性。

9420254 HAMRICK The columnar cacti of the North American Sonoran Desert offer an excellent opportunity to analyze how plants interact with their pollinators to produce the patterns of matings that characterize their populations. Each of the four species of cactus to be studied has large, open flowers visited by a shared set of pollinators (i.e. bats, birds, insects). We will establish exclusion treatments to insure that individual flowers are pollinated by a single pollinator type. Genetic analyses at multiple gene locations will then be used to describe the breeding structure of each pollinator-cactus species combination. These analyses will allow us to determine how the different pollinators distribute the pollen of an individual cactus species and will lead to a basic understanding of the relative importance of each pollinator to the overall breeding structure of each cactus species. Knowledge of the roles that different pollinators play in the reproduction of these dominant plant species will allow more effective and efficient management of desert reserves. For example, the determination that bats may disperse pollen long distances leads to the conclusion that the preservation of bat roosts which may be outside of the reserve is an essential component for the maintenance of genetic diversity in the cactus populations. If we find that a large proportion of the effective pollinations are performed by a single pollinator species for each of the cactus species, .the maintenance of this pollinator would be essential to the reproduction of an individual cactus species and to the overall integrity of the Sonoran Desert community.