CAREER: Using a multilayer plant-pollinator and fruit-frugivore network along a defaunation gradient to understand the combined influence of mutualisms on forest communities

职业：沿着动物区系丧失梯度使用多层植物传粉者和水果食果动物网络来了解互利共生对森林群落的综合影响

• 批准号: 2335783
• 负责人: Haldre Rogers
• 金额: $ 97.01万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2026-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2335783&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Using; multilayer; plant; pollinator

Plants require pollination and seed dispersal for regeneration, and many species rely on animals for both of these processes. Approximately 90% of plants are animal-pollinated, and 75-90% of tropical forest trees are animal-dispersed. However, research often focuses on these two interactions in isolation, even though global change drivers like invasive species, habitat degradation, and overharvesting have broad effects on animals. These effects could then cascade to affect pollination and dispersal of plants. This project identifies the plant-pollinator and plant-seed disperser interactions in native limestone forest of the Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific. The project will test whether joint consideration of pollination and seed dispersal improves predictions of which plant species are most dependent on animals and which animals are most critical. In addition, the research takes advantage of a defaunation gradient across the islands, ranging from a mostly intact animal community to an extremely degraded community. This gradient allows researcher to compare predicted impacts on plants of animal extinction to actual changes in plant communities. These results will be important for guiding conservation and restoration actions in areas where pollinator and disperser species are in decline. Finally, the lead researcher will build a mentoring network for Pacific Islander undergraduate and graduate students, high school teachers, and postgraduate technicians, develop a high school science module and after-school program in the Mariana Islands, and share scientific results with land managers in the Islands to inform management decisions. The project builds on the recent development of metabarcoding methods, which facilitate sampling of species interactions at the community-level, and multilayer species interaction network approaches, to identify the role of individual species across interaction types (i.e. pollination and seed dispersal). The research team will sample pollen from invertebrate and vertebrate pollinators and make observations of pollinator visitation to 15 common forest tree species on the islands of Saipan (fauna intact), Rota (partially defaunated), and Guam (defaunated) in the Western Pacific. The researchers will conduct a pollination experiment to determine how much each plant species depends on pollinators, and use stable isotopes to determine how much pollinators depend on plants. The plant-pollinator network will be compared to a fruit-frugivore network for the same forest communities compiled using previously collected data. Using these two networks, the researcher will compare species' roles across these two interaction types and identify changes along the defaunation gradient. Finally, both networks will be combined into a single multilayer network to identify patterns that emerge only when multiple interaction types are considered simultaneously. These results will advance understanding of the impact of population declines and extinctions on forest communities, and provide actionable recommendations for restoration in the Mariana Islands. This project is jointly funded by the Division of Environmental Biology/Population and Community Ecology program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.

植物需要授粉和种子传播才能再生，许多物种依赖动物进行这两个过程。大约90%的植物是动物授粉的，75-90%的热带森林树木是动物传播的。然而，研究往往集中在这两个相互作用的孤立，即使全球变化的驱动因素，如入侵物种，栖息地退化和过度捕捞对动物有广泛的影响。这些影响可能会级联影响植物的授粉和传播。该项目确定了西太平洋马里亚纳群岛的原生石灰岩森林中的植物传粉者和植物种子传播者的相互作用。该项目将测试是否授粉和种子传播的共同考虑改善哪些植物物种最依赖动物和哪些动物是最关键的预测。此外，该研究利用了整个岛屿的动物群落梯度，从基本完整的动物群落到极度退化的群落。这种梯度使研究人员能够将动物灭绝对植物的预测影响与植物群落的实际变化进行比较。这些结果将是重要的指导保护和恢复行动的地区，传粉和传播物种正在下降。最后，首席研究员将为太平洋岛民的本科生和研究生，高中教师和研究生技术人员建立一个指导网络，在马里亚纳群岛开发高中科学模块和课后计划，并与岛屿的土地管理人员分享科学成果，为管理决策提供信息。该项目以最近开发的元条形码方法为基础，这些方法有助于对社区一级的物种相互作用进行取样，并采用多层物种相互作用网络方法，以确定各个物种在各种相互作用类型（即授粉和种子传播）中的作用。研究小组将从无脊椎动物和脊椎动物授粉者那里采集花粉样本，并观察西太平洋塞班岛（动物群完好）、罗塔岛（部分动物群消失）和关岛（动物群消失）上15种常见森林树种的授粉者访问情况。研究人员将进行授粉实验，以确定每种植物物种对传粉者的依赖程度，并使用稳定同位素来确定传粉者对植物的依赖程度。植物授粉网络将比较水果食果动物网络为同一森林社区使用以前收集的数据编制。 利用这两个网络，研究人员将比较物种在这两种相互作用类型中的作用，并确定沿着动物群消失梯度的变化。最后，这两个网络将被组合成一个单一的多层网络，以识别只有在同时考虑多种交互类型时才会出现的模式。这些结果将促进对森林群落人口下降和减少的影响的理解，并为马里亚纳群岛的恢复提供可行的建议。该项目由环境生物学/人口和社区生态学计划部门和刺激竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。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。