Theroles of beneficial and damaging plant-microbial interaction in invasion

保护生物多样性取决于了解决定物种丰富度及其相对丰富度的机制。这项发现奖助金所基于的基本科学问题是，为什么一些植物物种会变得入侵？人们提出了不同的理论来解释植物共存和入侵的机制，然而，研究表明，这些理论并不能解释为什么一些植物物种成为入侵物种。此外，它们在很大程度上忽视了土壤生物群的作用。植物的很大一部分是它的根系，它生长在土壤中，作为无数有机体的栖息地，其中许多有机体与植物相互作用。该提案侧重于这些相互作用的结果，特别是确定有益的和有害的相互作用之间的平衡的作用，以及前者的作用在多大程度上遏制后者。据预测，这些相互作用的结果取决于植物的特征，最终决定了一个物种成为入侵物种的相对丰度和能力。拟议的研究将侧重于位于安大略省北部落叶林和常绿森林之间具有重要生态意义的过渡地带的老农田群落，以及在植物中广泛存在的有益微生物共生。将使用分子和经典技术相结合的方法来研究入侵植物是否比相对较少的本地植物从这些共生中获得更大的病原体保护。这项研究将有一个生物地理学部分，重点是植物-微生物和植物-植物在“家”和“离开”条件下的竞争相互作用。此外，它还将确定与外来入侵植物相关的微生物是否也可能被引入北美。预计这些结果将显著提高我们对土壤-植物-微生物相互作用在生态学中的作用及其防止生物多样性丧失的潜力的理解。

Conservation of biodiversity depends on understanding the mechanisms that determine species richness and their relative abundances. The basic scientific question on which this Discovery Grant is based is why do some plant species become invasive? Different theories have been proposed to explain the mechanisms of plant coexistence and invasion, however, research suggests that these do not explain why some plant species become invasive. In addition, they largely ignore the roles of the soil biota. A large part of a plant is its root system which grows in soil, a matrix that serves as habitat for a myriad of organisms, many of which interacting with plants. This proposal focuses on the outcomes of these interactions, particularly on identifying the role of equilibriums between beneficial and damaging interactions and the extent to which the role of the former is to keep the latter at bay. It is predicted that the outcomes of these interactions vary depending on plant traits, ultimately determining a species relative abundance and capacity to become invasive. The proposed research will focus on an old-field community located in the ecologically important transition zone between the deciduous and evergreen forest of Northern Ontario and on beneficial microbial symbioses, which are widespread among plants. A combination of molecular and classical techniques will be used to investigate whether invasive plants receive greater pathogen protection from these symbioses than relative less abundant native plants. The research will have a biogeographical component that focuses on plant-microbial and plant-plant competitive interactions under "home" and "away" conditions. Moreover it will determine if microbes associated with exotic invasive plants in their home range could also have been introduced in North America. It is expected that the results will significantly increase our understanding of the role of soil-plant-microbe interactions in ecology and their potential to be managed to prevent the loss of biodiversity.