POWRE: Ecological and Evolutionary Dynamics of Cheating in Mutualisms

bronstein9973521合作通常被认为反映了利益根本冲突的伙伴之间的微妙平衡。因此，很难理解人类和其他生物之间的这些相互作用是如何如此成功地持续下去的。power奖将用于研究“欺骗”——即从合作中背叛——何时会对不同物种之间的合作互动（互惠关系）的持久性构成风险。研究将集中在植物之间的相互作用，为它们授粉的动物（互惠主义者），以及收集花蜜但不仅不授粉，而且实际上损害花朵的动物（骗子），采用新的理论模型的发展。这项工作将对我们理解自然界中合作的显著普遍性和明显稳定性作出重大贡献。

Bronstein9973521Cooperation is often thought to reflect a delicate balance between partners whose interests fundamentally conflict. It has therefore been hard to understand how these interactions, both among humans and among other organisms, apparently persist so successfully. This POWRE award will be used to examine when "cheating" - that is, defection from cooperation - can pose a risk to the persistence of cooperative interactions between different species (mutualisms). The research will focus on interactions between plants, the animals that pollinate them (mutualists), and the animals that collect nectar but that not only do not pollinate, but actually damage the flowers (cheaters) employing the development of new theoretical models. This work should make a significant contribution towards our understanding of the remarkable ubiquity and apparent stability of cooperation in nature.