Understanding the Geographical and Community Context of Mutualism Dynamics: Fig-Pollinator-Parasite Interactions in the Sonoran Desert

互利主义--不同物种之间的互利关系--在自然界中非常重要。然而，到目前为止，我们对互利主义的理解一直缺乏适当的地理和生态背景，必须考虑到充分理解互利主义如何以及为什么存在的背景。 该项目研究了一种互惠共生关系，这种关系是我们大部分食物生产的基础，也是地球上生命的基础：开花植物与昆虫授粉者之间的相互作用。它的重点是索诺兰沙漠岩榕和它的传粉者，一种榕小蜂。 这种授粉互利共生将在许多不同的地方进行研究，其中一些地方有黄蜂的寄生虫，而另一些则没有。 理论预测，在无花果种群规模小的地方，就像岩无花果的典型情况一样，依赖于单一物种的短命传粉者会导致传粉者灭绝的高风险，并最终导致互利共生的崩溃。 该项目将测试无花果在不同时间开花是否会降低这种风险。 此外，它将探讨任何这样的变化，在开花时间进行意想不到的成本fig plants.The更广泛的影响，这项研究超越了无花果，无花果黄蜂系统，包括洞察环境因素如何影响何时何地发生互惠。此外，这些结果将有助于了解气候变化如何影响具有专门传粉者的小种群植物的授粉。 教育影响包括本科教育和培训，通过两个国际生物学课程的开发，让本科生参与实地研究和文化体验，并通过在合作实验室环境中实践研究经验的机会。

Mutualisms - associations between different species in which both benefit - are profoundly important in nature. To date, however, our understanding of mutualisms has suffered from a lack of appropriate geographical and ecological context, a context that must be considered to fully understand how and why mutualisms exist. This project investigates a mutualism that underlies much of our food production and that is fundamental to life on earth: the interaction between flowering plants and their insect pollinators. It focuses on the Sonoran Desert rock fig and its pollinator, a species of fig wasp. This pollination mutualism will be studied in many different places, some of which have parasites of the wasps and some that do not. Theory predicts that where fig population size is small, as is typically the case with rock figs, reliance on a single species of short-lived pollinator leads to a high risk of pollinator extinction and eventual collapse of the mutualism. This project will test whether figs flowering at different times reduce this risk. Further, it will explore whether any such changes in the timing of flowering carry unexpected costs to the fig plants.The broader impacts of this study go beyond the fig-fig wasp system to include insights into how environmental factors influence where and when mutualisms occur. Further, the results will aid in understanding how climate change may affect pollination in small populations of plants that have specialized pollinators. Educational impacts include undergraduate education and training via the development of two International Biology courses to engage undergraduates in field research and cultural experiences, and via opportunities for hands-on research experiences in a collaborative, laboratory environment.