Ecology and Evolution of Young Leaf Defenses in Tropical Rainforest Legumes

热带雨林豆类幼叶防御的生态学和进化

• 批准号: 0108150
• 负责人: Phyllis Coley
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: University of Utah
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-08-15 至 2004-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0108150&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Ecology; Evolution; Young; Leaf; Defenses

DEB-0108150 ColeyPlants and herbivores comprise the majority of the earth's biodiversity, and nowhere are their interactions as intense as in tropical forests. The evolutionary interactions between herbivores and plants has led to an "arms race" in which innovations in plant defenses are met by counter adaptations on the part of herbivores. For example, plants have a battery of physical, chemical and phenological defenses which help to protect their leaves against herbivores and pathogens. And herbivores have a staggering array of mechanisms for avoiding, detoxifying and even using plant defenses for their own benefit. Despite the wide acceptance that many traits of plants and herbivores result from an "arms race", we know very little about the underlying evolutionary mechanisms or ecological conditions that would lead to the evolution of novel defenses. To address this, we will study the defenses of rainforest trees in the family Leguminosae, quantifying various defenses, including alkaloids, measuring rates of leaf-feeding by herbivores and characterizing growth and defensive traits of herbivores. The work will be conducted at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and at the University of Utah. This basic research is necessary for understanding how natural selection favors the evolution of novel defenses as well as why suites of defenses tend to co-occur in different species of plants, as well as how plant defenses may constrain the behaviors, growth and defenses of the herbivores that feed on them. In addition, the research has applications for forest management, and for the development of medicinal drugs and agricultural crops using genes and defensive compounds from wild plants.

DEB-0108150 COLEYPLANT和食草动物包括地球的大部分生物多样性，而在热带森林中，它们的相互作用无处不在。草食动物与植物之间的进化相互作用导致了一场“军备竞赛”，在这种情况下，食草动物的反调整构成了植物防御的创新。例如，植物有一系列物理，化学和物候防御能力，有助于保护其叶子免受草食动物和病原体的影响。并且食草动物具有避免，排毒甚至使用植物防御措施以使其受益的各种机制。尽管广泛接受的是，许多植物和草食动物的特征是由“军备竞赛”引起的，但我们对导致新型防御能力的发展的潜在进化机制或生态条件知之甚少。为了解决这个问题，我们将研究豆科族家族中雨林树的防御能力，量化各种防御，包括生物碱，用食草动物来测量叶子喂养的速率，并表征食草动物的生长和防御性特征。这项工作将在巴拿马的史密森尼热带研究所和犹他大学进行。这项基础研究对于理解自然选择如何有利于新型防御的演变以及防御措施倾向于在不同种类的植物中同时发生的原因以及植物防御能够限制对其供养的草食动物的行为，生长和防御的原因。此外，该研究还适用于森林管理，以及使用野生植物的基因和防御性化合物开发药物和农作物作物。