The Formation and Influence of Spatially Structured Trophic Interactions in Primary Succession at Mount St. Helens

研究将研究营养相互作用（即，喂养关系）影响继承使用自然生物入侵，其中本地植物（羽扇豆）及其相关的专业食草动物正在使圣海伦火山化。 努力将量化营养相互作用的动态空间变化的程度影响的速度和模式的主要演替。 这将提供一个独特的机会来解开消费者与资源之间的复杂联系，在一个大的景观。 事实上，圣海伦斯山景观提供了一个独特的，但稍纵即逝的机会，研究草食动物介导的演替阶段之间的过渡。 将详细回答三个问题。 首先，在初级演替过程中，与羽扇豆斑块相关的资源或消费者梯度是否驱动空间结构化的草食动物动态？ 第二，羽扇豆和羽扇豆植食性影响植物群落动态吗？ 第三，这种复杂的三重营养再入侵是如何进行和影响原生演替的？ 详细的调查将构成一个关键的案例研究如何连续的空间推进的成分的寄生虫-草食动物-植物系统可以影响物种变化的动态在景观尺度上的分析。

Research will examine on how trophic interactions (i.e., feeding relationships) influence succession using a natural biological invasion in which a native plant (lupine) and its associated specialist herbivores are recolonizing Mount St. Helens. Efforts will quantify the extent to which spatial variation in the dynamics of trophic interactions influences the pace and pattern of primary succession. This will afford a unique opportunity to unravel complex connections between consumer-resource interactions over a large landscape. Indeed, the Mount St. Helens landscape provides a unique but fleeting opportunity to study an herbivore-mediated transition between successional phases. Three questions will be answered in detail. First, do resource or consumer gradients associated with patches of lupine drive spatially structured herbivore dynamics during primary succession? Second, do lupines and lupine herbivory affect the community dynamics of plants? Third, how is this complex tritrophic reinvasion progressing and influencing primary succession? The detailed investigations will constitute a key case study of how sequential spatial advance of components of a parasitoid-herbivore-plant system can influence the dynamics of species change at the landscape scale of analysis.