US-Chile Planning Visit to Establish a Collaborative Study on the Role of Ecological Gradients in Shaping Mutualistic and Antagonistic Interactions

美国-智利计划访问建立一个关于生态梯度在形成互利和拮抗相互作用中的作用的合作研究这个建议旨在建立美国和智利研究人员之间的一个新的智力伙伴关系，以探索植物和动物沿着陡峭的海拔梯度之间的相互作用的动态。 智利的合作者是昆虫学家Cristian Villagra博士（Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educacion）和化学生态学家Alejandro Urzua博士（圣地亚哥大学），而美国的合作者是Sergio Rasmann博士（加州大学欧文分校），他是一位研究植物-昆虫相互作用的化学组成的进化生态学家。这项研究将调查植物之间的相互作用的多样性的起源，授粉的昆虫，和消费它们的昆虫（食草动物）。该项目的中心重点是确定这些相互作用是如何形成的生态梯度，植物化学和/或进化历史。通过了解塑造物种相互作用的力量，研究人员将揭示产生和维持地球生物多样性的机制。自然群落得以维持，并沿着复杂的互利和对抗相互作用的网络进化。这些相互作用，植物，它们的传粉者，和它们的拮抗性食草动物之间，是如何形成的自然选择，并保持在特定的栖息地仍然是一个主导问题，在社区生态学。这项国际合作将利用植物属Haplopappus（菊科），其中包括60个物种，分布在智利科迪勒拉的太平洋沿岸海拔5000米以上。该项目的目标是评估单冠毛属的真正功能。花和叶的形态和化学组成的多样性沿着陡峭的海拔梯度，并剖析生物或非生物因素，或进化的制约因素如何相互作用，以保持社区的差异，在不同的栖息地。本项目将具体探讨：1）智利的动物群落和植物性状如何沿沿着梯度变化？2)维持传粉昆虫区系多样性的生物和非生物限制是什么？3）植物化学如何影响植物-动物物种的相互作用？

US-CHILE PLANNING VISIT TO ESTABLISH A COLLABORATIVE STUDY ON THE ROLE OF ECOLOGICAL GRADIENTS IN SHAPING MUTUALISTIC AND ANTAGONISTIC INTERACTIONSThis proposal seeks to create a new intellectual partnership between US and Chilean researchers to explore the dynamics of interactions between plants and animals along steep elevation gradients. The Chilean collaborators are the entomologist Dr. Cristian Villagra (Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educacion), and the chemical ecologist Dr. Alejandro Urzua (Universitad de Santiago), while the US-based collaborator is Dr. Sergio Rasmann (University of California, Irvine), an evolutionary ecologist who studies the chemical make-up of plant-insect interaction. This study will investigate the origin of the diversity of interactions between plants, the insects that pollinate their flowers, and the insects that consume them (herbivores). The central focus of this project is to determine how these interactions are shaped by ecological gradients, plant chemistry, and/or evolutionary history. By understanding the forces that shape species interaction, the researchers will shade light on the mechanisms that generate and maintain biodiversity on Earth. Natural communities are maintained and have evolved along complex webs of mutualistic and antagonistic interactions. How these interactions, between plants, their pollinators, and their antagonistic herbivores, are shaped by natural selection and maintained within particular habitats remains a dominant question in community ecology. The international collaboration will take advantage of the plant genus Haplopappus (Asteraceae), which includes 60 species scattered from the Pacific coast up to 5000 m above sea level in the Chilean cordillera. The goal of this project is to evaluate the true functionality of Haplopappus spp. flower and leaf morphology and chemical make-up diversity along steep elevation gradients, and to dissect how biotic or abiotic factors, or evolutionary constraints interact to maintain community variation across contrasting habitats. This proposed project will specifically ask: 1) How do animal community and plant traits change along elevation gradients in Chile? 2) What are the biotic and abiotic constraints in maintaining the faunal diversity of pollinators? And 3) how does plant chemistry influences plant-animal species interactions?