Understanding the Geographical and Community Context of Mutualism Dynamics: Fig-Pollinator-Parasite Interactions in the Sonoran Desert

了解互惠动态的地理和社区背景：索诺兰沙漠中的无花果-传粉者-寄生虫相互作用

• 批准号: 1146312
• 负责人: John Nason
• 金额: $ 42.5万
• 依托单位: Iowa State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1146312&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; Geographical; Community; Context; Mutualism

Mutualisms - associations between different species in which both benefit - are profoundly important in nature. To date, however, our understanding of mutualisms has suffered from a lack of appropriate geographical and ecological context, a context that must be considered to fully understand how and why mutualisms exist. This project investigates a mutualism that underlies much of our food production and that is fundamental to life on earth: the interaction between flowering plants and their insect pollinators. It focuses on the Sonoran Desert rock fig and its pollinator, a species of fig wasp. This pollination mutualism will be studied in many different places, some of which have parasites of the wasps and some that do not. Theory predicts that where fig population size is small, as is typically the case with rock figs, reliance on a single species of short-lived pollinator leads to a high risk of pollinator extinction and eventual collapse of the mutualism. This project will test whether figs flowering at different times reduce this risk. Further, it will explore whether any such changes in the timing of flowering carry unexpected costs to the fig plants.The broader impacts of this study go beyond the fig-fig wasp system to include insights into how environmental factors influence where and when mutualisms occur. Further, the results will aid in understanding how climate change may affect pollination in small populations of plants that have specialized pollinators. Educational impacts include undergraduate education and training via the development of two International Biology courses to engage undergraduates in field research and cultural experiences, and via opportunities for hands-on research experiences in a collaborative, laboratory environment.

互助主义 - 两者受益的不同物种之间的关联 - 在自然界中非常重要。然而，迄今为止，我们对互助主义的理解遭受了缺乏适当的地理和生态环境的困扰，必须考虑这种背景，以充分理解如何以及为什么存在互助主义。 该项目调查了我们大部分粮食生产基础的互助主义，这是地球生命的基础：开花植物与昆虫传粉媒介之间的相互作用。它着重于Sonoran沙漠岩石无花果及其传粉媒介，这是无花果黄蜂的一种。 这种授粉互助主义将在许多不同的地方进行研究，其中有些具有黄蜂的寄生虫，有些则没有。 理论预测，在无花果无花果的情况下，无花果种群的大小很小，依赖于单一短寿命授粉媒介的一种物种会导致授粉媒介灭绝的高风险和互助主义的最终崩溃。 该项目将测试无花果在不同时间开花是否会降低这种风险。 此外，它将探索开花时间的任何此类变化是否会给无花果植物带来意想不到的成本。这项研究的更广泛影响超出了无花果金黄色的WASP系统，以了解环境因素如何影响何时何时以及何时发生互助。此外，结果将有助于理解气候变化如何影响具有专门授粉媒介的小型植物种群的授粉。 教育的影响包括本科教育和培训，通过开发两项国际生物学课程，以吸引本科生参与实地研究和文化经验，以​​及通过在协作，实验室环境中进行动手研究经验的机会。