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

超过85%的开花植物和至少30%的农作物由动物授粉。在野生植物中存在于多物种群体中，并且通常共享传粉者，这可以导致不同物种之间的花粉交换。这项研究将确定在利用相同的传粉者时允许不同种类的开花植物共存的机制，即它们如何避免或容忍交换花粉。因此，这项工作将通过它们共享的传粉者促进对植物相互作用的后果的理解，并将为预测天然开花植物群落的组成和可持续性提供数据，以及全球变化（如气候变暖，入侵物种或传粉者减少）破坏这些群落的后果。确定允许开花植物组合共存的特征将通过为增强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来造福社会。这项工作还将通过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。这项工作将测试新的断言，植物性状（例如，花柱和柱头特征）影响传粉者共享的雌性适合度成本（异种花粉接收的有害影响）在介导群落内开花植物的共存中发挥重要但未被充分认识的作用。以复制的加州野花群落为模型，这项工作将把植物性状与异源花粉接收的模式和成本以及全群落范围内授粉前相互作用的修饰符联系起来。在这样做的时候，这项工作将测试的想法，在一个共花社区的宽容和避免异种花粉接收是共存的替代策略，宽容是一种稳定的力量，抑制的风险生殖失败的物种，收到高heterospecific花粉。 因此，这项工作将加速我们对传粉者促进开花植物共存的主要方式的理解，这是一个迫切需要更多研究的领域，特别是在面对影响植物和传粉者的全球变化时。

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.