US-Chile Planning Visit to Establish a Collaborative Study on the Role of Ecological Gradients in Shaping Mutualistic and Antagonistic Interactions

美国-智利计划访问建立一项关于生态梯度在形成互惠和对立互动中的作用的合作研究他的提议旨在建立美国和智利研究人员之间的新的智力合作伙伴关系，探索沿陡峭海拔梯度的植物和动物之间的互动动态。智利的合作者是昆虫学家克里斯蒂安·维拉格拉博士(大都会大学)和化学生态学家亚历杭德罗·乌尔祖亚博士(圣地亚哥大学)，而美国的合作者是塞尔吉奥·拉斯曼博士(加州大学欧文分校)，他是一名进化生态学家，研究植物与昆虫相互作用的化学组成。这项研究将调查植物、为花授粉的昆虫和消耗花的昆虫(食草动物)之间相互作用的多样性的起源。这个项目的中心焦点是确定这些相互作用是如何由生态梯度、植物化学和/或进化历史塑造的。通过了解塑造物种相互作用的力量，研究人员将揭示地球上产生和维持生物多样性的机制。自然群落得以维持，并沿着互惠和对立相互作用的复杂网络进化。植物、它们的传粉者和敌对的食草动物之间的这种相互作用是如何由自然选择塑造并维持在特定生境中的，仍然是群落生态学中的一个主要问题。这项国际合作将利用菊科植物Haplopappus(菊科)，其中包括散布在太平洋海岸至智利海平面5000米的60个物种。这个项目的目标是评估Haplopappus spp的真正功能。本研究旨在了解沿陡峭海拔梯度的花和叶的形态和化学组成的多样性，并剖析生物或非生物因素或进化制约因素如何相互作用，以维持不同生境的群落多样性。这个拟议的项目将具体问：1)智利的动物群落和植物特征如何随海拔梯度变化？2)维持传粉者区系多样性的生物和非生物限制因素是什么？3)植物化学如何影响动植物物种间的相互作用？

US-CHILE PLANNING VISIT TO ESTABLISH A COLLABORATIVE STUDY ON THE ROLE OF ECOLOGICAL GRADIENTS IN SHAPING MUTUALISTIC AND ANTAGONISTIC INTERACTIONSThis proposal seeks to create a new intellectual partnership between US and Chilean researchers to explore the dynamics of interactions between plants and animals along steep elevation gradients. The Chilean collaborators are the entomologist Dr. Cristian Villagra (Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educacion), and the chemical ecologist Dr. Alejandro Urzua (Universitad de Santiago), while the US-based collaborator is Dr. Sergio Rasmann (University of California, Irvine), an evolutionary ecologist who studies the chemical make-up of plant-insect interaction. This study will investigate the origin of the diversity of interactions between plants, the insects that pollinate their flowers, and the insects that consume them (herbivores). The central focus of this project is to determine how these interactions are shaped by ecological gradients, plant chemistry, and/or evolutionary history. By understanding the forces that shape species interaction, the researchers will shade light on the mechanisms that generate and maintain biodiversity on Earth. Natural communities are maintained and have evolved along complex webs of mutualistic and antagonistic interactions. How these interactions, between plants, their pollinators, and their antagonistic herbivores, are shaped by natural selection and maintained within particular habitats remains a dominant question in community ecology. The international collaboration will take advantage of the plant genus Haplopappus (Asteraceae), which includes 60 species scattered from the Pacific coast up to 5000 m above sea level in the Chilean cordillera. The goal of this project is to evaluate the true functionality of Haplopappus spp. flower and leaf morphology and chemical make-up diversity along steep elevation gradients, and to dissect how biotic or abiotic factors, or evolutionary constraints interact to maintain community variation across contrasting habitats. This proposed project will specifically ask: 1) How do animal community and plant traits change along elevation gradients in Chile? 2) What are the biotic and abiotic constraints in maintaining the faunal diversity of pollinators? And 3) how does plant chemistry influences plant-animal species interactions?