A Study of the Determinants of Microbial Diversity: The Community Ecology of Cactus-Specific Yeasts

9727659 Starmer 生活在仙人掌腐烂的茎或果实组织中的酵母菌种类明显不同。尽管这两个社区被发现并排，但它们很少有共同的物种。这项赠款将利用这种生物情况作为一个实验系统，以研究生物群落成员的原因及其总体多样性。将研究的因素包括：1）传播，果蝇载体的作用，从栖息地到栖息地分布酵母菌; 2）物种的相互作用，由一些酵母菌产生的杀手毒素的作用;和3）它们的相互作用，殖民和竞争能力之间的权衡作用。将深入研究扩散和相互作用之间的相互作用，以检验这一假设，即增加高度竞争性生物的定殖能力比增加较差竞争者的定殖能力对群落成员有更大的影响。 这项工作将通过在实验室中使用实验微观世界来完成。这些调查应有助于了解影响微生物多样性的因素，并提供关于自然界中维持不同群落类型的因素的知识。这项研究直接关系到应用生物学对维持生物多样性的关注，以及微生物在生物控制中的实际应用。

9727659 Starmer The species of yeast that live in decaying stem or fruit tissues of cactus are distinctly different. Even though the two communities are found side-by-side, they rarely share common species. This grant will use this biological situation as an experimental system to examine the reasons for membership in biological communities and their overall diversity. Factors that will be studied include: 1) dispersal, the role of drosophilid vectors that distribute the yeasts from habitat to habitat; 2) species interactions, the role of killer toxins produced by some of the yeasts; and 3) their interactions, the role of trade-offs between colonization and competitive ability. Interactions between dispersal and interactions will be investigated in depth to test the hypothesis that increasing the colonization ability of highly competitive organisms has a greater influence on community membership than increasing the colonization ability of poorer competitors. The work will be done by using experimental microcosms in a laboratory. These investigations should contribute to an understanding of the factors influencing microbial diversity and provide knowledge on what maintains distinct community types in the natural world. The study relates directly to concerns in applied biology about the maintenance of biological diversity in general and about the practical use of microorganisms for biological control.