U.S. -Brazil Planning Visit: The Evolution and Ecology of Young Leaf Defenses in Inga, A Widespread and Speciose Neotropical genus

0531803这次美国-巴西计划访问将支持犹他大学的Phyllis D.Coley博士和Thomas A.Kursar博士发起一项有希望的国际合作，与巴西国家亚马逊研究所(INPA)的Maristerra Lemes博士开展一个研究热带豆科树木Inga的生态和化学防御的项目。植物和食草动物构成了地球生物多样性的大部分，它们之间的相互作用在热带森林中极其强烈。食草动物和植物之间的进化相互作用导致了一场“军备竞赛”，在这场竞赛中，植物防御的创新被食草动物的反适应所满足。在热带森林中，绝大多数草食发生在年轻的叶子上，而不是成熟的叶子上，物种之间的损害存在巨大的差异，但人们对这种变化的根本原因知之甚少。从2002年开始，PI在巴拿马建立了Inga项目，这次访问将是他们的工作首次在巴拿马以外的地区扩展。访问巴西同事的目的是建立一个合作，研究亚马逊地区的因加，那里的因加特别多样和丰富。利用系统发育学方法，该项目将检查一些因加物种幼叶中次生代谢物的性质和活性，并将其与其他植物防御系统和田间实际损害率相关联。方法包括植物化学分析、草食动物饲养试验以评估毒性、草食动物的田间量化、叶片物候和系统发育树的构建。

0531803ColeyThis U.S.-Brazil planning visit will support Drs. Phyllis D. Coley and Thomas A. Kursar, both of the University of Utah, to initiate a promising international collaboration with Dr. Maristerra Lemes of the Instituto National de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA) in Brazil on a project to study the ecology and chemical defenses of the tropical legume tree, Inga. Plants and herbivores make up the majority of the earth's biodiversity and their interactions are extremely intense in tropical forests. The evolutionary interaction between herbivores and plants has led to an "arms race" in which innovation in plant defenses are met by counter adaptations on the part of herbivores. In tropical forests, the vast majority of herbivory occurs on young rather than mature leaves and there is enormous variation in damage among species, yet little is known as to the underlying cause of this variation.Beginning in 2002, the PI established the Inga project in Panama and this visit will represent the first geographic expansion of their work out of Panama. The objective of the visit to colleagues in Brazil is to establish a collaboration studying Inga in the Amazon where it is particularly diverse and abundant. Using a phylogenetic approach, the project will examine the nature and activity of secondary metabolites in young leaves of a number of Inga species, and correlate this with other plant defenses, and with actual damage rates in the field. Methods include analyses of plant chemistry, feeding trials with herbivores to assess toxicity, and field quantification of herbivory, leafing phenology and the construction of a phylogenetic tree.