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

我们所说的植物群落是由各种各样的植物物种组成的，其中许多植物利用动物、风和其他工具来传播种子并确保它们的生存。种子传播——将种子从亲本中传播出去——对维持物种多样性很重要，而食果动物是许多植物物种种子传播的关键。通常，在由多个植物个体组成的植物群落中，许多植物共用同一种动物作为种子传播者。不同的植物物种共用同一种动物来传播它们的种子，这一事实可能会影响到每个植物个体的传播程度。邻近的不同物种的结果植物可能会通过吸引更多的种子传播动物到他们的区域来相互帮助，或者它们可能会通过争夺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（美洲茄、牛耳草和紫荆）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田野中构建三种植物不同组合的实验社区。首先，我们将评估相邻植物物种对鸟类在每种邻域类型中摄取量的影响。其次，我们将测量在每种类型的实验小区中分散的种子数量及其与亲本植物的距离。该研究将有助于更好地了解植物物种之间的相互作用，以及某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.