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.

互利共生——不同物种之间的联合，双方都受益——在自然界中具有极其重要的意义。然而，迄今为止，我们对互利共生的理解因缺乏适当的地理和生态背景而受到影响，而必须考虑到这一背景才能充分理解互利共生如何以及为何存在。 该项目研究了一种互利共生现象，这种共生关系是我们大部分粮食生产的基础，也是地球生命的基础：开花植物与其传粉昆虫之间的相互作用。它重点关注索诺兰沙漠无花果及其传粉者——一种无花果黄蜂。 这种授粉互利共生现象将在许多不同的地方进行研究，其中一些地方有黄蜂寄生虫，有些则没有。 理论预测，在无花果种群规模较小的情况下，就像石无花果的典型情况一样，对单一物种的短命授粉媒介的依赖会导致授粉媒介灭绝和互利共生最终崩溃的高风险。 该项目将测试不同时间开花的无花果是否可以降低这种风险。 此外，它将探讨开花时间的任何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-无花果黄蜂系统，包括深入了解环境因素如何影响互利共生发生的地点和时间。此外，这些结果将有助于了解气候变化如何影响具有专门授粉媒介的小群体植物的授粉。 教育影响包括通过开发两门国际生物学课程让本科生参与实地研究和文化体验的本科生教育和培训，以及在协作实验室环境中获得实践研究经验的机会。