Collaborative Research: Chance or necessity? Adaptive vs. non adaptive evolution in plant-frugivore interactions

该项目将研究食果蝙蝠的嗅觉能力和行为偏好以及它们所吃水果的气味的共同进化。植物已经进化出了多种多样的果实特征来表明成熟，反过来，吃水果的动物也进化出了特殊的感官能力，使它们能够找到成熟的果实。然而，蝙蝠是否以及如何塑造了水果特征的进化，以及蝙蝠的感官能力是如何进化到检测水果信号的，人们仍然知之甚少。结果果植物和食果蝙蝠之间的生态相互作用对全球热带生态系统的维持和再生至关重要，因此这项工作将对热带森林的管理具有重要意义。该项目的成果将被纳入伯克自然历史和文化博物馆的展览，并为西雅图和哥斯达黎加的小学生提供旅行学习工具包。该项目还将为不同群体的本科生、研究生、一名博士后研究员和一名哥斯达黎加研究生提供培训。该项目将专注于植物与动物相互作用中一个相对未被探索但至关重要的方面：植物和脊椎动物食果动物之间的挥发性化学交流。它将整合分析化学、分子遗传学和行为生态学的先进工具，收集两种生态上重要的热带动植物（胡椒植物和卡罗莱亚蝙蝠）的饮食、水果挥发性分子、蝙蝠嗅觉基因和行为偏好方面前所未有的数据。这项工作将测试互惠共生是否对植物和果实性状施加了选择压力，或者它们的多样性是否最好由系统发育来解释。新的比较和实验方法将在以下方面联系多样性模式：(1)互惠强度；(2)水果气味化学成分；(3)蝙蝠嗅觉受体亚基因组；(4)蝙蝠气味偏好。通过将植物化学信号与食果动物嗅觉亚基因组和行为反应联系起来，本研究将为基因组和行为在进化生态学中的整合应用奠定基础，并为未来复杂系统的功能化学生态学研究奠定基础。

This project will investigate the joint evolution of the olfactory ability and behavioral preferences of fruit-eating bats and the scents of the fruits that they eat. Plants have evolved an outstanding diversity of fruit characteristics to signal ripeness and, in turn, fruit-eaters have evolved specialized sensory abilities that allow them to locate ripe fruits. If and how bats have shaped the evolution of fruits traits, and how bat sensory abilities have evolved to detect fruit signals, however, remains poorly understood. Because the ecological interactions between fruiting plants and fruit-eating bats are crucial to the maintenance and regeneration of tropical ecosystems worldwide, this work will have important implications in the management of tropical forests. Results from this project will be incorporated into an exhibit at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and traveling study kits for elementary school students in Seattle and Costa Rica. The project will also provide training for a diverse group of undergraduates, graduate students, one postdoctoral researcher, and a Costa Rican graduate student. The project will focus on a relatively unexplored yet crucial aspect of plant-animal mutualisms: volatile chemical communication between plants and vertebrate frugivores. It will integrate advanced tools from analytical chemistry, molecular genetics, and behavioral ecology to collect unprecedented data on diet, fruit volatile molecules, bat olfactory genes and behavioral preferences for two ecologically important groups of tropical plants and animals (Piper plants and Carollia bats). This work will test whether mutualism has imposed selective pressures on plant and frugivore traits, or if their diversity is best explained by phylogeny. Novel comparative and experimental approaches will link the patterns of diversity in: (1) mutualism strength, (2) fruit scent chemical composition, (3) bat olfactory receptor subgenomes, and (4) bat scent preferences. By relating plant chemical signals to the olfactory subgenome and behavioral responses of frugivores, this research will jumpstart the integration of genomic and behavioral applications in evolutionary ecology, and enable future research on the functional chemical ecology of complex systems.