SP2: Volatilome and Symbiosis

所有生物体都会释放出挥发性有机化合物(VOCs)，这对其环境中的挥发物组有贡献。因此，波动组预计将反映当地社区的多样性。其中一些挥发物用于化学通信或化学识别过程，其他挥发物是驱避剂，并向接收者发出危险信号。虽然我们知道挥发性有机化合物对生态相互作用的重要性，但对整个挥发物对物种组成的重要性进行的研究很少。树皮甲虫和文昌甲虫是德国森林中物种丰富的群体，已知使用化学线索和信号来寻找交配伙伴、相关的真菌共生体和产卵的适当寄主树木。因此，这些特殊的腐氧基甲虫种群是研究挥发物组对它们在当地群落中发生的影响以及它们对当地挥发物组的贡献的完美模型。这将包括真菌共生体以及甲虫的天敌，作为VOC组成复杂性的潜在贡献者。在我们的子项目中，我们将调查选定森林斑块中的挥发物是否代表它们当地的物种群落。此外，我们将调查在这些森林斑块加强协调项目结构多样性(ESBC)的干预措施是否对VOCs的多样性产生影响。这将有助于我们检验挥发物是否解释腐胺甲虫群落多样性的假设。寄主树种使用的特殊性的差异将有助于理清小气候和特定树种类型对这些甲虫当地群落的影响。我们预计，由于结构多样性的增强，在更多的异质林地中，害虫树皮和文心兰甲虫的数量将会减少。最后，我们将把我们的研究扩展到ESBC对选定树皮和文心兰甲虫的真菌共生体的影响，我们假设在结构更多样化的森林斑块中，这些真菌对甲虫的拮抗作用更加多样化。后者测试了ESBC的“昆虫-微生物共生”功能和森林保护对树皮和文昌甲虫的作用。

All organisms emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which contributes to the volatilome in their environment. Thus, the volatilome is expected to mirror the diversity of the local community. Some of these volatiles are used for chemical communication or chemical recognition processes, other volatiles are repellents and signal danger to the receiver. Although we know about the importance of the VOCs for ecological interactions, only a few studies have been conducted to investigate the significance of entire volatilomes for species composition. Bark and ambrosia beetles are species-rich groups in forests in Germany and known to use chemical cues and signals to find mating partners, associated fungal symbionts and appropriate host trees for oviposition. Thus, these particular group of saproxylic beetle species is a perfect model to investigate the impact of the volatilome on their occurrence in local communities as well as their contribution to the local volatilomes. This will include fungal symbionts as well as natural enemies of the beetles as potential contributors to the complexity of the VOC composition.In our subproject we will investigate whether the volatilome in selected forest patches will represent their local species community. In addition, we will investigate whether the interventions to enhance the structural diversity (ESBC) of the Coordination Project in these forest patches have an impact on the diversity of the VOCs. This will help us to test the hypothesis whether the volatilomes explain the diversity of the saproxylic beetle community. Differences in the specificity of host tree use will help to disentangle the effect of microclimate and the availability of specific tree types on the local community of these beetles. We expect that pest bark and ambrosia beetles will be less abundant in more heterogenous forest patches due to enhanced structural diversity. Finally, we will extend our investigations to the impact of the ESBC on fungal symbionts of selected bark and ambrosia beetles, which we hypothesize to be more diverse in beetle-antagonistic fungi in structurally more diverse forest patches. The latter tests the role of ESBC on the function “insect-microbe symbiosis” and forest protection against bark and ambrosia beetle pests.