RUI: The Herbivory Uncertainty Principle - How Experimenter Visitation and Measurement Affect Herbivory and Plant Growth

草食不确定性原理-实验者访问和测量如何影响草食和植物生长pi: Richard A. Niesenbaum， Muhlenberg学院pi: James F . Cahill， alberta大学pi: Christine M. Ingersoll， Muhlenberg学院1927年，Werner Heisenberg提出亚原子粒子的研究存在基本限制，因为测量它们的行为会影响它们的行为。我们之前的工作证实，这种不确定性也发生在生态学研究中，在生态学研究中，访问植物以测量草食率实际上改变了这些比率，并显著影响了所研究的植物-昆虫相互作用。这种“拜访效应”的含义是巨大的，拟议的工作将使我们能够更实质性地测试植物的拜访和测量是否会改变食草植物和植物的生长速度，并将增加我们对这些影响的机制的理解。我们将研究邻近植物和当地光环境的存在如何影响“访问效应”的发生，以及访问和触摸如何影响植物化学和昆虫在植物罗布麻中的觅食。拟议研究的结果将挑战长期存在的假设，即实地研究人员是“良性观察者”，因为在实验期间参观植物的基本行为可能改变这些植物的性能。一个重要的拜访效应可能会促使我们重新思考我们测量和测试关于草食、植物生长和生产力以及其他植物-动物相互作用的假设的方式。这项工作对于了解未来研究中减轻任何潜在观察者效应的可能策略至关重要，并将提供有关自然植物群落中植物-动物相互作用的基本生态学信息。另一个主要目标是通过让学生在重要的生态研究项目中发挥主要作用来推进本科教育。

The Herbivory Uncertainty Principle - How Experimenter Visitation and Measurement Affect Herbivory and Plant GrowthPI: Richard A. Niesenbaum, Muhlenberg CollegeCO-PI: James F Cahill, University of AlbertaCO-PI: Christine M. Ingersoll, Muhlenberg CollegeIn 1927,Werner Heisenberg proposed that there are fundamental limitations to the study of subatomic particles, as the act of measuring them can affect their behavior. Our prior work confirms that such uncertainty also occurs in ecological studies, where visiting plants to measure rates of herbivory actually changes those rates and significantly impacts the plant-insect interactions being studied. The implications of such "visitation effects" are enormous, and the proposed work will permit us to more substantially test whether visitation and measurement of plants alters rates of herbivory and plant growth, and will increase our understanding of the mechanisms responsible for these effects. We will examine how the presence of neighboring plants and local light environment influence the occurrence of "visitation effects", and how visitation and touch influence plant chemistry and insect foraging in the plant, Apocynum cannabinum. Results from the proposed research will challenge the long-standing assumption that field researchers are "benign observers", as the essential act of visiting plants during an experiment could alter the performance of those plants. A significant visitation effect may motivate us to re-think the way that we measure and test hypotheses about herbivory, plant growth and productivity, and other plant-animal interactions. This work is essential to understanding possible strategies to mitigate any potential observer effect in future studies, and will provide information about the basic ecology of plant-animal interactions in natural plant communities. An additional major goal is to advance undergraduate education by giving students primary roles in a significant ecological research project.