Individual Behavior and Population Processes: Spatial and Multi-trophic Aspects of Insect-Plant and Host-Parasitoid Interactions

大多数生物生活在有空间结构的世界里。这笔赠款的目的是使用动态、状态变量模型(以一致的方式耦合环境和生理参数)来研究昆虫-植物和寄主-寄生蜂相互作用的空间和多营养层面。在这项工作中，将实现三个主要目标。首先，将动态状态变量建模的方法扩展到包括空间结构。其次，这样的扩展模型将被用来确定个体行为如何描述种群在空间或时间上的变化。第三，这一理论的预测将通过一个由一株植物、一只攻击植物种子的果蝇和一只攻击果蝇的黄蜂组成的三个营养级别系统进行验证。所选择的实验系统使用的是一种与苹果蝇密切相关的苍蝇，因此在这项工作中学到的见解可能对害虫控制具有重要的应用意义。实验和理论的结合是对行为进化生态学发展新的和重要的见解的理想选择。

Most organisms live in worlds that are spatially structured. The purpose of this grant is to use dynamic, state variable models (which couple environmental and physiological parameters in a consistent manner) to study spatial and multi- trophic level aspects of insect-plant and host-parasitoid interactions. In the course of this work, three main goals will be achieved. First, the methodology of dynamic state variable modeling will be extended to include spatial structure. Second, such extended models will be used to determine how the descriptions of how populations change over space or time arise from individual behavior. Third, the predictions of the theory will be tested using a three trophic level system consisting of a plant, a fruit fly that attacks the seeds of the plant, and a wasp that attacks the fruit fly. The experimental system chosen uses a fly that is closely related to the apple maggot fly, so that insights learned in this work may have important applied implications in pest control. The combination of experiment and theory is ideal for the development of new and important insights into behavioral evolutionary ecology.