Structure of Plant-Arthropod Associations: Impact of Herbivores on Community Composition and Host Performance

植物节肢动物协会的结构：食草动物对群落组成和寄主性能的影响

• 批准号: 9527536
• 负责人: Richard Root
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Cornell Univ - State: AWDS MADE PRIOR MAY 2010
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing grant
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-02-01 至 2001-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9527536&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Structure; Plant; Arthropod; Associations; Impact

9527536 Root The conditions created by a long-term experiment involving the removal of insects from abandoned agricultural fields provide an exceptional opportunity to examine key assumptions in models of plant succession. In a previous experiment, the suppression of plant-feeding insects released the controls on goldenrod populations. Under these circumstances, goldenrods became strong competitive dominants that suppressed many plant species that are prominent in normal plant succession. This study will measure the changes that follow the withdrawal of insecticide treatments to reveal how herbivores can account for vegetational change in communities that are dominated by plants with strong inhibitory influences. The results of this experiment will also demonstrate whether the removal of insects, a major component in most terrestrial ecosystems, merely sets back the normal sequence of successional changes or if it causes the community to develop along an entirely new trajectory that produces a persistent and previously unknown plant association. In another set of experiments, the attributes that are responsible for the dominance of goldenrods will be examined. Previous work has shown that goldenrods respond to herbivore damage by reducing their fecundity, but not the quality of their seeds. As is the case with our understanding of the population biology of most plants, little is known about the fate of the seeds after they leave the parent. The availability of germination sites, loss of viability in aging seeds, size of the seed bank, and dispersal of seeds will be addressed in field experiments in isolated gardens where the density and age of seeds are controlled. This investigation will further our understanding of management strategies for fields in long-term fallow. The studies on seed dispersal and the dynamics of seed banks will provide better insight into the processes involved in the establishment of weed populations.

9527536根由一个长期的实验，包括从废弃的农田中去除昆虫创造的条件提供了一个特殊的机会，以检查植物演替模型中的关键假设。在之前的一项实验中，抑制食草昆虫释放了对一枝黄花种群的控制。在这种情况下，一枝黄花成为强大的竞争优势，抑制了许多植物物种是突出的正常植物演替。这项研究将测量杀虫剂处理后的变化，以揭示食草动物如何解释由具有强烈抑制作用的植物主导的群落中的植被变化。这个实验的结果也将证明，昆虫，在大多数陆地生态系统中的一个主要组成部分的去除，是否只是设置回正常的顺序的演替变化，或者如果它导致社会发展沿着一个全新的轨迹，产生一个持久的和以前未知的植物协会。在另一组实验中，将检查导致黄花菜占主导地位的属性。先前的研究表明，黄花菜对食草动物的伤害的反应是降低它们的繁殖力，但不是它们种子的质量。就像我们对大多数植物种群生物学的理解一样，我们对种子离开母体后的命运知之甚少。发芽地点的可用性，老化种子的活力损失，种子库的大小，种子的传播将在隔离花园的密度和年龄的种子控制的田间实验中解决。本研究将进一步了解长期休耕农田的管理策略。对种子扩散和种子库动态的研究将有助于更好地了解杂草种群建立的过程。