EAGER: Determining the role of priority effects within dominant species to govern intra-specific variation and diversity

这项研究将扩展当前研究的一个重要领域，即探索生态群落在火灾、洪水或干旱等干扰事件后如何重新组装。最近的研究表明，不同物种到达一个地区的顺序往往对所产生的生态群落的构成和功能有很大的影响，早到的物种比晚到的物种有优势。 这被称为优先效应。这项研究将使用南部大平原的植物种群，将这一想法扩展到物种之间的相互作用之外，研究同一物种的个体之间的相互作用的优先效应是否会影响种群的多样性及其在生态系统中的功能。研究人员将研究六种不同的草种，将大平原的原生物种与入侵的非原生物种进行比较。这种比较将加强我们对物种多样性如何产生和影响社区其他部分的理解，并可能帮助我们管理这个重要的栖息地。此外，这项研究的结果将是迈向更广泛影响的重要一步，包括可持续农业生态集约化努力的新方法。该项目还将为高中生、本科生和研究生提供研究培训，包括妇女和来自代表性不足的少数群体的学生。了解种内多样性对生态系统功能和服务的重要性，包括水和碳的循环，是一种新的做法。该研究项目将调查在群落组装过程中由资源竞争驱动的优先效应的泛化到种内相互作用的背景下，以确定种内生物多样性和生态系统功能，在南部大平原常见的三种本地和三种外来植物物种中。尖端的植物基因分型将通过地上和地下功能和生理性状的量化与植物表型相关联，以描述站点内和站点间遗传和表型多样性的关联模式。这些数据将为温室围隔生态系统实验的建设提供信息，这些实验将用于检验关于各类场地之间以及本地和非本地物种之间优先效应的相对重要性的假设。后者的实验将阐明植物基因型到达顺序在人口组织的结果，最终塑造生态系统的功能。

This research will extend an important area of current research that has explored how ecological communities re-assemble after disturbance events like fires, floods or droughts. Recent studies have shown that the order in which different species arrive to an area often has a big influence on the makeup and function of the resulting ecological community, with early arrivers having an advantage over late arrivers. This is referred to as a priority effect. This research will use plant populations in the Southern Great Plains to extend this idea beyond interactions among species, looking at whether priority effects in the interactions among individuals of the same species shape populations in terms of the diversity and their functions in the ecosystem. Researchers will study six different grass species, allowing comparison of species that are native to the Great Plains to some that are invading non-natives. This comparison will strengthen our understanding of how diversity within species comes about and influences the rest of the community, and may help us manage this important habitat. In addition, findings from this study will be a major step forward into broader implications including novel approaches to ecological intensification efforts in sustainable agriculture. The project also will provide research training for high school, undergraduate and graduate students, including women and students from underrepresented minority groups.Understanding the significance of intra-specific diversity for the functioning and services of ecosystems, including the cycling of water and carbon, is novel. The research project will investigate the generalization of priority effects driven by resource competition during community assembly to the context of intra-specific interactions, in order to determine intra-specific biodiversity and ecosystem function in three native and three exotic plant species commonly found in the Southern Great Plains. Cutting-edge plant genotyping will be linked with plant phenotyping via quantification of above- and belowground functional and physiological traits, to describe the patterns of association of genetic and phenotypic diversity within and across sites. These data will inform the construction of greenhouse mesocosm experiments which will be used to test hypotheses regarding the relative importance of priority effects among types of sites and between native and non-native species. The latter experiments will shed light on how the outcomes of plant genotype arrival order during population organization ultimately shapes the functioning of ecosystems.