Novel Interactions and Adaptive Rewiring in Invasive Forest Insect Communities

入侵森林昆虫群落中的新颖相互作用和适应性重新布线

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-06861
• 负责人: Smith, Sandy
• 金额: $ 2.01万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=753644
• 关键词: Novel; Interactions; Adaptive; Rewiring; Invasive

Globalization ensures that invasive species will continue to arrive, establish, and cause significant disruption in our ecosystems, leading to major global change. The proposed research will increase our ability to manage such species in our forests through improved understanding of the community interactions that affect the natural enemies regulating their populations. Specifically, I explore questions related to species interactions, shifts in community diversity, and novel associations in forest insect communities, with focus on understanding interactions between native and non-native natural enemies and their associates. NSERC-DG funding will enable HQP support for primary ecological studies on insect-insect-plant interactions to elucidate mechanisms driving changes in species composition and diversity over time. Species interactions underpin invasion theory and are a major thrust of my primary research. Recent introduction of the non-native emerald ash borer (EAB), along with recruitment of natural enemies from native North American congeneric agrilid species and the implementation of classical biological control releases of Asian natural enemies, provides an ideal model system to explore novel associations and mechanisms leading to functional displacement, species rewiring, and spillover in these invaded food webs. Here, I investigate community patterns as new species establish in forest communities across a series of gradients and ask do native agrilid assemblages shift similarly after accidental (EAB) or intentional (classical bio-control) invasion, through species turnover or rewiring. Species, community, and biogeographic data will be derived across different forest gradients of tree diversity, urbanization, EAB establishment, and natural enemy introduction to quantify the degree of species interactions that can account for shifts in community assemblages. I predict that natural enemies will move from native Agrilus beetles on to EAB, and that species in these novel communities are rewired rather than replaced. Results from this primary research will add to our understanding of novel associations following invasion, and its application will be of interest to scientists, bio-control researchers, and policy-makers who regulate invasive species. My proposal requests funding to fuel the HQP that will not only provide the basic science underpinning on novel interactions and ecosystem resilience, but will also achieve unique capacity in invasion biology for Canada's most significant renewable resource, our forests.

全球化确保入侵物种将继续到达、形成并在我们的生态系统中造成重大破坏，导致重大的全球变化。拟议的研究将通过改善对影响调节其种群的天敌的群落相互作用的了解，提高我们在森林中管理此类物种的能力。具体地说，我探讨了与物种相互作用、群落多样性变化和森林昆虫群落中新的联系有关的问题，重点是了解本地和非本地天敌及其同伙之间的相互作用。NSERC-DG的资金将使HQP能够支持关于昆虫-昆虫-植物相互作用的初步生态学研究，以阐明推动物种组成和多样性随时间变化的机制。物种间的相互作用是入侵理论的基础，也是我主要研究的重点。最近引入的非本地翡翠白蜡虫(EAB)，以及从北美本土同类农业物种中招募天敌，以及实施亚洲天敌的经典生物防治释放，为探索导致这些入侵的食物网中功能置换、物种重新布线和溢出的新的关联和机制提供了理想的模式系统。在这里，我研究了森林群落中新物种在一系列梯度上建立的群落格局，并询问在意外(EAB)或故意(经典的生物控制)入侵后，本地土生生物组合是否会通过物种更替或重新布线发生类似的变化。物种、群落和生物地理数据将在树木多样性、城市化、EAB建立和天敌引入的不同森林梯度上得到，以量化物种相互作用的程度，这些程度可以解释群落组合的变化。我预测天敌将从本地的阿基罗甲虫转移到EAB，这些新群落中的物种将被重新布线，而不是被取代。这项初步研究的结果将增加我们对入侵后新关联的理解，其应用将对科学家、生物控制研究人员和管理入侵物种的政策制定者感兴趣。我的提案要求为HQP提供资金，这不仅将为新的相互作用和生态系统弹性提供基础科学基础，还将为加拿大最重要的可再生资源--我们的森林--实现入侵生物学方面的独特能力。