Geographic Structure of Coevolving Insect/Plant Interactions

0073911汤普森这个项目将调查如何共同进化形状昆虫和植物之间的相互作用跨越广泛的地理景观。当前生态学研究面临的一个主要挑战是了解相互作用的物种在不同的群落（共同进化热点）中经历不同的选择压力时，如何进行共同进化。结合生态，地理和系统发育的证据允许的机会，利用蛾Greya politella和其宿主植物之间的相互作用，以解决这些共同进化过程的核心问题。蛾是当地特定的宿主授粉种子寄生虫，蛾和它们的宿主植物之间的相互作用发生在北美西部的广泛栖息地。本研究将探讨三个目标。第一个目标是确定社区之间的结果差异是否随着时间的推移而稳定，第二个目标将评估结果的地理模式是否是不同社区人口之间基因流动的结果。第三个目标将是评估如何在互利和敌对的热点之间的相互作用的差异，在以前的工作中确定的不同的生态结果作出贡献。总之，这三个目标的结果将有助于共同进化理论的发展和生物多样性的组织。他们将讨论选择马赛克和共同进化热点如何在不同生态条件下塑造地理景观中的物种相互作用。总体而言，因此，这些结果将有助于我们了解的地理尺度，种间相互作用的多样性和共同进化的方式，社区之间的类群联系。

0073911ThompsonThis project will investigate how coevolution shapes the interactions between insects and plants across broad geographic landscapes. A major current challenge in ecological research is to understand how ongoing coevolution proceeds as interacting species experience different selection pressures in different communities (co-evolutionary hotspots). The combined ecological, geographic, and phylogenetic evidence allows the opportunity to use the interactions between the moth Greya politella and its host plants to address these central questions on co-evolutionary processes. The moths are locally host specific pollinating seed parasites, and the interaction between the moths and their host plants occurs across a wide range of habitats in western North America. Three objectives will be addressed in this study. The first objective is to determine whether the differences in outcome among communities are stable over time, and the second objective will assess whether the geographic patterns in outcome result from gene flow among populations in different communities. The third objective will be to evaluate how the differences in the interaction between the mutualistic and antagonistic hotspots identified during previous work contribute to the different ecological outcomes. Together, the results of these three objectives will aid in the development of the theory of coevolution and the organization of biodiversity. They will address how selection mosaics and co-evolutionary hotspots shape species interactions across geographic landscapes under different ecological conditions. Overall, the results will therefore contribute to our understanding of the geographic scale at which interspecific interactions diversity and the ways in which coevolution links taxa among communities.