QEIB. Theory and Experimentation with a Powerful Trophic Cascade: Nematodes, Rootfeeders, and Bush Lupine.

疾病传播的知识对健康、农业和自然界生物群落至关重要。 我们建议用一种昆虫疾病进行实验，这种疾病为学习传播的一般原理提供了巨大的潜力。 我们将与昆虫病原线虫（EPN），杀死毛虫吃植物的根。 这些线虫可以通过杀死食根毛虫来保护植物。 我们的初步数学模型使我们提出，EPN人口之间的灭绝点，由于过度开发和灭绝点，由于开发不足 本项目的主要目标是寻找造成过度开发和开发不足之间区域的生物因素。 EPN的传播和分散在羽扇豆灌木丛中是过度开发和开发不足生物学领域的核心。 移民可以拯救已经或正在灭绝的EPN种群。 田间试验旨在回答导致EPN种群稳定的条件问题。EPN是栽培和自然环境中根食昆虫最重要的天敌之一，在农业和管理中具有重要意义

AbstractKnowledge about the spread of diseases is vitally important to health, agriculture, and to natural communities of organisms. We propose to experiment with an insect disease that offers great potential for learning general principles of spread. We will work with entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) that kill caterpillars that eat the roots of plants. These nematodes can protect the plants by killing root feeding caterpillars. Our preliminary mathematical models lead us to propose that the EPN population is caught between the point of extinction due to overexploitation and a the point of extinction due to underexploitation Finding the biological factors that create the area between over exploitation and underexploitation is the major objective of this project. The spread and dispersal of the EPN among lupine bushes is central to the area of over and underexploitation biology. Immigrants can rescue EPN populations that have or are headed for extinction. The field experiments are designed to answer questions about the conditions that lead to stability of the EPN population EPNs are among the most important natural enemies of root feeding insects in both cultivated and natural settings and are of substantial interest to agriculture and management