RAPID: Cicadas as catalysts: Quantifying the population, community, and evolutionary effects of a periodic resource pulse.

RAPID：蝉作为催化剂：量化周期性资源脉冲的人口、群落和进化影响。

• 批准号: 2133270
• 负责人: Jennifer Lau
• 金额: $ 18.25万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-07-01 至 2023-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2133270&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Cicadas; catalysts; Quantifying; population

The Brood X cicada emergence is a unique event as billions of cicadas emerge after accumulating resources belowground for seventeen years and transfer those resources to the soil surface. This rapid transfer of resources from belowground to aboveground acts like plant fertilizer and increases soil nitrogen availability. Because nitrogen is frequently the nutrient plants need most, this fertilization will likely affect plant community composition (which species are present and most abundant), promote invasive species, and alter plant interactions with insect herbivores and both beneficial and harmful microorganisms. The abundance of resources caused by decaying cicada carcasses also may affect plant demography (whether the plant population expands or declines) and how plants and microbes evolve. Even though the resource pulse is short-lived, many of these effects may affect forest understories in the region for years to come. The goal of this project is to study the effect of cicada emergence on plant communities and plant-microbial-insect interactions. The project also capitalizes on the charismatic cicada emergence to generate excitement about science in K-12 classrooms. The researchers will collaborate with a K-12 teacher who will work alongside undergraduate students, graduate students, and the PI to develop hands-on classroom STEM activities.The influence of rare events on ecology and evolution is challenging to study because of their largely unpredictable nature. In this case, this project capitalizes on the cicada emergence to install experiments that quantify both the immediate and long-term effects of periodical resource pulses. The project involves adding and removing thousands of cicada carcasses from plots in the forest. This experiment will be used to answer questions in the fields of evolutionary ecology, community ecology, and population ecology. First, the researchers will measure natural selection on plant traits to investigate how nitrogen affects plant evolution and will isolate nitrogen-fixing rhizobia to test theoretical predictions that increased resources cause the evolution of less cooperative rhizobia. Second, the researchers will test how cicada carcass treatments affect plant-herbivore and plant-microbe interactions, plant community composition, and whether the resulting resource pulse creates "invasion windows" that promote invasive species. Finally, the researchers will conduct demographic studies on focal species to test how the resource pulse contributes to population increases (or declines). In sum, this project investigates how a rare event alters forest understory ecology and evolution immediately, but also sets the stage for investigating long-term effects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

蝉巢的出现是一个独特的事件，因为数十亿只蝉在地下积累了17年的资源后出现，并将这些资源转移到土壤表面。这种资源从地下到地上的快速转移就像植物肥料一样，增加了土壤氮的有效性。由于氮通常是植物最需要的营养物质，这种施肥可能会影响植物群落组成（哪些物种存在且最丰富），促进入侵物种，并改变植物与食草昆虫以及有益和有害微生物的相互作用。腐烂的植物尸体所带来的丰富资源也可能影响植物种群（植物种群是扩大还是减少）以及植物和微生物的进化。尽管资源脉动是短暂的，但其中许多影响可能会在未来几年影响该区域的森林下层植被。本项目的目标是研究植物群落和植物-微生物-昆虫相互作用的影响。 该项目还利用了魅力四射的新兴事物，在K-12教室中产生对科学的兴奋。研究人员将与一位K-12教师合作，该教师将与本科生、研究生和PI一起开发实践课堂STEM活动。罕见事件对生态学和进化的影响具有挑战性，因为它们在很大程度上是不可预测的。在这种情况下，该项目利用了新出现的实验来量化周期性资源脉冲的即时和长期影响。该项目涉及在森林中的地块上增加和移除数千具驯鹿尸体。这个实验将被用来回答进化生态学、群落生态学和种群生态学领域的问题。首先，研究人员将测量植物性状的自然选择，以研究氮如何影响植物进化，并将分离固氮根瘤菌，以测试理论预测，即资源增加会导致不太合作的根瘤菌的进化。第二，研究人员将测试昆虫尸体处理如何影响植物-食草动物和植物-微生物的相互作用，植物群落组成，以及由此产生的资源脉冲是否会产生促进入侵物种的“入侵窗口”。最后，研究人员将对重点物种进行人口统计学研究，以测试资源脉冲如何促进人口增长（或下降）。总之，该项目调查了一个罕见的事件如何立即改变森林林下生态和进化，但也为调查长期影响奠定了基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。