DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Interspecific Competition and Facilitation Among Avian-dispersed Plants

我们所说的植物群落是由不同的植物物种组成的，其中许多植物物种利用动物、风和其他媒介来传播它们的种子并确保它们的生存。 种子传播，即种子远离母体的传播，对保持物种多样性很重要，而食果动物是许多植物种子传播的关键。通常，在由多个个体植物组成的植物邻域内，许多植物共享相同的动物作为种子传播者。 事实上，不同的植物物种共享相同物种的动物来传播它们的种子，这可能会影响每个植物个体的传播量。相邻的不同种类的结果实植物可以通过吸引更多的种子传播动物到它们的区域来帮助彼此，或者它们可以通过竞争动物来阻碍彼此的种子传播。 我们将使用三种鸟类传播的植物物种（Solanum americanum，Cestrum diurnum和Ripelum humilis）进行实验，以研究它们作为邻居发生时如何影响彼此的种子传播。 我们将在波多黎各的开阔地建造三种植物不同组合的实验街区。 首先，我们将评估邻近植物物种对每种邻近类型的鸟类吃多少水果的影响。 其次，我们将测量分散种子的数量以及它们与每种类型的实验邻域中的亲本植物的距离。 这项研究将有助于更好地了解植物物种如何相互作用，以及一些植物物种如何影响其他植物物种的丰度和分布。

What we refer to as plant communities are composed of diverse plant species, many of which use animals, wind, and other vehicles to spread their seeds and ensure their survival. Seed dispersal-the spreading of seeds away from parents-is important in maintaining species diversity, and fruit-eating animals are key to the dispersal of many plant species' seeds. Often, within a plant neighborhood comprised of multiple individual plants, many plants share the same animals as seed-dispersers. The fact that different plant species are sharing the same species of animal to disperse their seeds may affect how much dispersal takes place for each plant individual. Neighboring fruiting plants of different species may help each other by attracting more seed-dispersing animals to their area, or they may hamper each other's seed-dispersal by competing for the animals. We will conduct experiments using three bird-dispersed plant species (Solanum americanum, Cestrum diurnum, and Rivina humilis) to examine how they affect each other's seed dispersal when occurring as neighbors. We will construct experimental neighborhoods of different combinations of the three plant species in open fields in Puerto Rico. First, we will evaluate the effects of neighboring plant species on how much fruit birds eat at each neighborhood type. Second, we will measure the number of dispersed seeds and their distance from the parent plant in each type of experimental neighborhood. This study will contribute to a better understanding of how plant species interact with each other and how some plant species may affect the abundance and distribution of other plant species.