Collaborative Research: Evolution of adaptive synergism between mutualistic partners during range-limit evolution

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This research will elucidate how the ecological and evolutionary processes of interacting species will respond to climate change at their range limits, with implications for conservation of species in marginal habitat. Climate change alters species distributions, with major consequences for species embedded in complex ecological interactions, such as mutualistic symbioses (e.g., plant-pollinator or host-microbe mutualisms). This project focuses on an insect-fungus mutualism, leafcutter ants cultivating fungi for food, which are agricultural pests in the southwestern USA and throughout the New World. Leafcutter mutualisms are ideal to study how symbioses respond to climate change because leafcutter ants are dominant components in ecosystems, and because experimental ant-fungus combinations can be manipulated under laboratory conditions simulating the altered temperature stresses expected under climate change. This research adapts techniques developed for the study of gene-by-gene interactions within an organism to test whether ant-by-fungus synergy enhances temperature-stress adaptations and thus determines range-limits at the northern (USA) and southern (Uruguay/Argentina) distributional limits of leafcutter ants. Improved understanding of how interacting species respond to climate change has scientific and societal benefits, contributing to development of models for conservation of species in marginal habitat, and to models predicting whether mutualistic pest species may become more problematic under climate change. Collaborations with researchers in Uruguay and Argentina will provide training of US researchers in an international setting. This project is a collaboration among a major research institution, a regional institution, and an institution serving underrepresented students where some of the field research will be conducted, and will strengthen long term interactions and help foster enhanced STEM education initiatives. Furthermore, collaborations with researchers in Uruguay and Argentina will provide training of US researchers in an international setting. Workshops will be conducted at public schools, museums, and nature centers to foster understanding of local biodiversity, conservation, and challenges under environmental change.