DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Ecological mechanisms of multilevel selection in Silene vulgaris

植物种群中一些最重要的相互作用是由其他物种的作用所调节的，例如传粉者。这个项目试图了解种群水平的特性如何影响这些跨物种的相互作用，从而推动植物繁殖成功的差异。这项工作将在野生和实验种群的开花植物Silene U.S.garis中进行。这一物种的自然种群保持着令人难以置信的不同性别比例，从7%到70%的雌性。种群间性别比例的巨大变异性提供了一个极好的自然实验来检验这样一个假设，即种群间性别比例的差异会导致传粉者在招募和行为上的差异。传粉者的运动和行为将被记录下来，并与用分子标记评估的生殖输出的测量结果进行比较，以确定社会背景是否以及如何影响生物体的适合性。了解种群水平的属性如何驱动生态相互作用是理解进化过程的基础。确定社会和生态环境如何影响授粉生物学有可能为农业实践提供信息，随着家蜂数量最近和持续下降，农业实践越来越依赖自然传粉者组合。这笔赠款将为山湖生物站的一名博士生的培训提供支持，并为本科生提供研究机会。

Some of the most important interactions in plant populations are mediated by the actions of other species, such as pollinators. This project seeks to understand how population level properties influence these cross-species interactions, thereby driving differences in plant reproductive success. Work will be conducted in wild and experimental populations of the flowering plant Silene vulgaris. Natural populations of this species maintain incredibly variable sex ratios, from 7 to 70% female. The large variability of sex ratio among populations provides an excellent natural experiment to test the hypothesis that differences in sex ratio among populations create differences in the recruitment and behavior of pollinators. Pollinator movement and behavior will be recorded, and compared with measurements of reproductive output assessed with molecular markers to determine whether and how social context affects an organism's fitness.Understanding how population level properties drive ecological interactions is fundamental to understanding the evolutionary process. Determining how social and ecological context influence pollination biology has the potential to inform agricultural practices, which increasingly rely on natural pollinator assemblages with the recent and continued decline in domestic bees. This grant will provide support for the training of a PhD student and support research opportunities for undergraduate students at the Mountain Lake Biological Station.