The role of post-pollination interactions in structuring co-flowering plant communities

85%以上的开花植物和至少30%的农作物是由动物授粉的。在野生植物中，植物以多物种群体存在，并且经常共享传粉媒介，这可以导致不同物种之间的花粉交换。本研究将确定不同种类开花植物在利用相同传粉媒介时共存的机制，即它们如何避免或容忍交换花粉。因此，这项工作将促进对植物通过共享传粉媒介相互作用的后果的理解，并将为预测自然开花植物群落的组成和可持续性以及全球变化（如气候变暖、入侵物种或传粉媒介减少）对这些群落的破坏后果提供数据。确定开花植物组合共存的性状，将为提高可持续性的农业实践和保护生物多样性热点的政策提供信息，从而造福社会。这项工作还将通过由研究生和博士后设计和实施的研讨会和实践活动，为小学生和高中教师提供授粉生物学方面的培训。植物-传粉者相互作用如何促进开花植物群落的问题主要集中在介导授粉前相互作用的植物性状上，而忽略了介导授粉后过程的性状的潜力。这项工作将测试一个新的断言，即植物性状（如花柱和柱头特征）影响传粉者共享的雌性适应性成本（异种花粉接收的有害影响）在调节开花植物在群落内共存方面发挥着重要作用，但尚未得到充分认识。以复制的加州野花群落为模型，将植物性状与异种花粉接收的模式和成本以及群落范围内授粉前相互作用的修饰因子联系起来。在这样做的过程中，这项工作将验证这样一种观点，即在一个共花群落中，容忍和避免接受异源性花粉是共存的替代策略，并且容忍是一种稳定的力量，可以降低接受高异源性花粉的物种繁殖失败的风险。因此，这项工作将加速我们对传粉媒介促进开花植物共存的主要途径的理解，这是一个迫切需要进一步研究的领域，特别是面对影响植物和传粉媒介的全球变化。

Greater than 85% of all flowering plants and at least 30% of agricultural crops are pollinated by animals. In the wild plants exist in multispecies groups and often share pollinators which can lead to exchange of pollen between different species. This research will determine the mechanisms that allow different species of flowering plants to coexist when utilizing the same pollinators, that is, how they avoid or tolerate exchanging pollen. Thus, the work will advance understanding of the consequences of plant interactions via their shared pollinators and will provide data for predicting the composition and sustainability of natural flowering plant communities, as well as the consequences of disruption of these from global change, such as climate warming, invasive species, or pollinator decline. Identifying the traits that allow combinations of flowering plants to coexist will benefit society by informing agricultural practices for enhanced sustainability, and policies for conservation of biodiversity hotspots. The work will also provide training in pollination biology for elementary school students and high school teachers via workshops and hands-on activities that are designed and implemented by graduate students and postdocs.The question of how plant-pollinator interactions contribute to flowering plant communities has largely focused on plant traits that mediate pre-pollination interactions, and ignored the potential for traits that mediate post-pollination processes. This work will test the novel assertion that plant traits (e.g., style and stigma features) which influence the female fitness costs of pollinator sharing (detrimental effects of heterospecific pollen receipt) play an important, yet underappreciated, role in mediating coexistence of flowering plants within communities. Using replicated California wildflower communities as a model, the work will link plant traits with the pattern and costs of heterospecific pollen receipt, and modifiers of pre-pollination interactions at a community-wide scale. In doing so, the work will test the idea that within a co-flowering community tolerance and avoidance of heterospecific pollen receipt are alternate strategies for coexistence, and that tolerance is a stabilizing force that depresses the risks of reproductive failure of species that receive high heterospecifc pollen. Thus, the work will accelerate our understanding of the primary ways pollinators contribute to the coexistence flowering plants, an area urgently in need of greater study, especially in the face of global changes affecting both plants and pollinators.