Ecological dynamics of multi-mutualist communities

互惠是物种之间的相互作用，双方都从这种联系中受益。昆虫或鸟类为植物授粉是自然群落和农业群落之间的一种基本的互惠互动。互惠关系产生了参与互惠关系的物种持续生存所需的关键资源。例如，传粉者(昆虫、鸟类)对许多农作物的繁殖是必不可少的，传粉者依赖于从花中获得的食物。在自然群落中，互惠关系往往涉及到具有相似功能角色的大物种群体。例如，许多开花植物物种共同生活在一个群落中，并由许多不同的昆虫物种授粉。物种之间类似的功能作用可能有助于互惠社区的持续和成功，因为替代伙伴可以提供必要的资源。此外，具有类似功能的物种还可以提供保护，使其免受互惠互利的剥削者或寄生虫的侵扰，这些寄生虫占用资源或服务，而不是互惠互利。这项研究将检验物种数量、物种间角色相似程度对多元互惠群落稳定性的影响。这项研究还将测试剥削者的存在如何影响社区的持久性。研究人员将在萌芽酵母中使用一种合成互惠作用。了解互惠关系如何持续，对于保护和恢复自然社区以及制定成功的可持续农业战略至关重要。这项研究将为一个高中课外项目创造材料，该项目将有助于弥合贫困儿童的科学教育差距。此外，该研究还将为研究生和本科生提供培训。这项研究将通过实验操作互惠群落结构来评估物种丰富度和伴侣冗余的变化如何影响持久性，以检验有助于其持久性的多物种互惠群落的特性。这项研究还将测试剥削者的存在如何影响社区的持久性，并将利用实验结果开发新的理论，以确定互惠互利动态中的关键因素。为了实现这一点，一种新开发的发芽酵母中的合成互惠将被用来实验性地操纵互惠共生的群落结构。这项研究将考察四个目标：1)多个互惠物种群落的结构如何影响群落动态？目标1实验将操纵物种丰富度和群落的对称性，以测试这些因素如何影响持久性。2)多个互惠社区不受剥削吗？目标2实验将向社区添加剥削者，以评估对抗交互如何影响持久性。3)具有相似功能的多余互惠物种的存在如何影响互惠投资？目标3将测试物种丰富度和功能冗余的增加如何影响互助者投资的资源。4)目标4将建立多物种互惠关系的消费者-资源模型，该模型捕捉在实验中观察到的动态，以确定促进持久性的关键参数。

Mutualisms are interactions between species where both partners benefit from the association. Pollination of plants by insects or birds is a fundamental mutualism interaction of both natural and agricultural communities. Mutualisms produce critical resources required for the persistence of species involved in the mutualistic interactions. For example, pollinators (insects, bird) are essential for reproduction in many crop plants and pollinators are dependent on food obtained from flowers. In natural communities, mutualisms often involve large groups of species that have similar functional roles. For instance, many flowering plant species live together in a community and are pollinated by a number of different insect species. Similar functional roles among species may contribute to the persistence and success of mutualism communities because alternate partners can provide necessary resources. In addition, species with similar functional role could also provide protection from exploiters or parasites of mutualisms that take resources or services without reciprocating. The study will test the effect of numbers of species, degree of role similarity among species on the stability of multi-mutualist communities. The study also will test how the presence of exploiters affects community persistence. The investigators will use a synthetic mutualism in budding yeast. Understanding how mutualisms persist is critical for protection and restoration of natural communities and in creating successful strategies for sustainable farming. The research will create materials for a high school after-school program that will help to bridge science education gaps for underprivileged children. Additionally, the study will provide training for graduate and undergraduate students. The research will examine the properties of multi-species mutualism communities that contribute to their persistence by experimentally manipulating mutualist community structure to assess how changes in species richness and partner redundancy influence persistence. The research will also test how the presence of exploiters influences community persistence and will use the experimental results to develop new theory to identify the key factors in mutualism dynamics. To accomplish this, a newly developed synthetic mutualism in budding yeast will be used to experimentally manipulate mutualist community structure. The study will examine four objectives: 1) How does the structure of multi-mutualist species communities affect community dynamics? Objective 1 experiments will manipulate species richness and symmetry of communities to test how these factors impact persistence. 2) Are multi-mutualist communities buffered from exploitation? Objective 2 experiments will add exploiters to communities to assess how antagonistic interactions impact persistence. 3) How does the presence of redundant mutualist species with similar function influence mutualist investment? Objective 3 will test how increased species richness and functional redundancy influence the resources that mutualists invest. 4) Objective 4 will build a consumer-resource model of multi-species mutualism that captures the dynamics observed in the experiments to identify key parameters that facilitate persistence.