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

共生关系——不同物种之间相互受益的关系——在自然界中是极其重要的。然而，迄今为止，我们对共生关系的理解一直受到缺乏适当的地理和生态背景的影响，而要充分理解共生关系如何以及为什么存在，必须考虑到这一背景。这个项目研究了一种相互作用，这种相互作用是我们大部分食物生产的基础，也是地球上生命的基础：开花植物和它们的昆虫传粉者之间的相互作用。它的重点是索诺兰沙漠岩无花果和它的传粉者，一种无花果黄蜂。这种传粉互助关系将在许多不同的地方进行研究，其中一些地方有黄蜂的寄生虫，而一些地方没有。理论预测，在无花果种群规模较小的地方，如典型的石无花果，依赖单一的短命传粉媒介会导致传粉媒介灭绝的高风险，并最终导致共生关系的崩溃。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这种变化是否会给无花果植物带来意想不到的成本。这项研究的更广泛的影响超出了无花果黄蜂系统，包括对环境因素如何影响共生发生的地点和时间的见解。此外，这些结果将有助于了解气候变化如何影响具有专门传粉者的小种群植物的授粉。教育影响包括本科教育和培训，通过开发两门国际生物学课程来吸引本科生进行实地研究和文化体验，并通过在协作实验室环境中进行实践研究经验的机会。

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.