Collaborative Research: Measuring And Modeling The Ecological Consequences Of Associational Effects

这个项目将研究虫害如何在植物物种的不同组合的背景下影响单个植物种群。当昆虫寻找植物进食时，它们会受到周围植物的外观和气味的影响。邻近植物既可以增加也可以减少害虫对植物的危害，这一术语称为联合效应(AE)。虽然很明显，联合效应可以发生在单个植物的水平上，但人们对这些效应是否足够重要，是否足以改变自然界中的植物种群，或者它们在多大程度上影响农业领域的作物产量，知之甚少。这个项目将使用短期实验结合数学模型来推断联合效应如何影响本地植物的种群。该项目中开发的方法也可用于确定如何利用联合效应来最大限度地提高作物产量。该项目将为本科生、研究生和博士后学生以及一名获得学士学位后的技术员提供STEM培训，研究人员将与K-12教师合作，开发利用学校花园和甘蓝和芥菜等作物之间的联合效应教授科学的活动。这个项目将结合数学模型和实验来研究联合效应是否以及如何影响老田地系统中植物种间竞争的结果(共存和/或相对丰度)，以卡罗莱纳茄子(Carolina Horsenettle)和高山一枝黄花(Solidago Altissima)为重点物种。该项目将从经验上解决三个问题：1)该系统中声发射的空间尺度是多少？2)来自多个物种的声发射是如何结合的？(使用两种不同密度的单一养殖、双养殖和三养养殖的实验)和3)联合效应如何影响竞争(使用之前有和没有草食动物的竞争实验的数据)。空间隐式和显式模型将解决植物空间结构和频率依赖形式如何改变声发射对植物种群的预测影响。研究人员将使用来自经验研究的数据对模型进行参数化，以测试关联效应如何扩大到总体水平。总体而言，该项目将首次直接量化联合效应如何影响植物竞争，并为理解不同形式的联合效应如何影响不同类型的消费者-资源系统的种群水平过程提供一个一般框架。该项目还将建议如何最好地操纵农业中的联合效应，以最大限度地提高作物产量。

This project will study how insect pests affect individual plant populations within the context of diverse assemblages of plant species. When insects search for plants to eat, they can be influenced by the look and smell of surrounding plants. Neighboring plants can both increase and decrease insect damage to plants, and the term for this is associational effects (AE). Although it is clear that associational effects can occur at the level of individual plants, little is known about whether these effects are important enough to alter plant populations in nature, or to what degree they contribute to affecting crop yield in agricultural fields. This project will use short-term experiments in combination with mathematical models to infer how associational effects influence populations of native plants. The methods developed in this project can also be used to determine how to use associational effects to maximize crop yields. The project will provide STEM training for undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students and a post-baccalaureate technician, and the researchers will partner with K-12 teachers to develop activities for teaching science using school gardens and associational effects between crops such as collards and mustards. This project will combine mathematical models and experiments to address whether and how associational effects influence the outcome of plant interspecific competition (coexistence and/or relative abundance) in an old-field system, using Solanum carolinense (Carolina horsenettle) and Solidago altissima (goldenrod) as focal species. The project will address three questions empirically: 1) What is the spatial scale of AE in this system? (using a Nelder fan design field experiment) 2) How do AE from multiple species combine? (using an experiment with monocultures, bicultures, and tricultures at two different densities) and 3) how do associational effects influence competition (using data from a previous competition experiment with and without herbivores). Spatially implicit and explicit models will address how plant spatial structure and the form of frequency dependence alter predicted effects of AE on plant populations. The researchers will parameterize models using data from the empirical studies to test how associational effects scale up to the population level. Overall, this project will quantify directly for the first time how associational effects influence plant competition and provide a general framework for understanding how different forms of associational effects influence population-level processes across different types of consumer-resource systems. This project will also suggest how best to manipulate associational effects in agriculture, in order to maximize crop yields.