The Diversification of Chemical and Developmental Defenses Against Herbivores Within the Genus Inga

英加属食草动物的化学防御和发育防御的多样化

• 批准号: 0640630
• 负责人: Phyllis Coley
• 金额: $ 52.15万
• 依托单位: University of Utah
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-03-15 至 2011-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0640630&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Diversification; Chemical; Developmental; Defenses; Against

Plants and the insects that eat them comprise the majority of the earth's biodiversity and their interactions are extremely intense in tropical forests. The evolutionary interactions between herbivores and plants has led to an "arms race" in which innovations in plant defenses are met by counter adaptations in insects. How plant defenses shape plant evolution and interactions with insects will be studied in Inga, a widespread and diverse tropical tree in the pea family. Inga has an arsenal of toxic chemical defenses and also attracts defensive ants by producing nectar on leaves. To understand the costs and benefits of these defense strategies, and to see how they have changed over time, researchers will quantify defenses in many species of Inga from Panama, Ecuador and Peru, and will sequence DNA to create a phylogenetic tree. This is the first study to examine a range of chemical and non-chemical defenses, quantify their effectiveness and tradeoffs between defenses, and test their evolutionary relationships.Approximately 50% of prescription medicines are still derived from nature, so improving our understanding of where and how these chemical defenses work in nature is valuable. The ecological information about plant chemical defenses has informed a drug-discovery project in Panama that emphasized economic development and conservation. Latin American students will also be involved in the field research, thus facilitating training and better access to study abroad. The capacity-building and scientific information obtained in this project have implications for forest restoration, and are consistent with goals of conservation and international biodiversity programs.

植物和以它们为食的昆虫构成了地球生物多样性的大部分，它们之间的相互作用在热带森林中非常强烈。食草动物和植物之间的进化相互作用导致了一场“军备竞赛”，在这场竞赛中，植物防御的创新受到昆虫反适应的影响。植物防御如何塑造植物进化和与昆虫的相互作用将在英嘉，广泛和多样化的热带树木在豌豆家庭研究。因加有一个有毒化学防御武器库，还通过在叶子上产生花蜜来吸引防御性蚂蚁。为了了解这些防御策略的成本和收益，并了解它们如何随着时间的推移而变化，研究人员将量化来自巴拿马，厄瓜多尔和秘鲁的许多Inga物种的防御，并将对DNA进行测序以创建系统发育树。这是第一个研究一系列化学和非化学防御，量化其有效性和防御之间的权衡，并测试其进化关系的研究。大约50%的处方药仍然来自自然界，因此提高我们对这些化学防御在自然界中的作用和方式的理解是有价值的。 关于植物化学防御的生态信息为巴拿马的一个药物发现项目提供了信息，该项目强调经济发展和保护。拉丁美洲学生也将参与实地研究，从而促进培训和更好地出国留学。该项目中获得的能力建设和科学信息对森林恢复具有影响，并与保护和国际生物多样性计划的目标相一致。