The Diversification of Chemical and Developmental Defenses Against Herbivores Within the Genus Inga

英加属食草动物的化学防御和发育防御的多样化

• 批准号: 0640630
• 负责人: Phyllis Coley
• 金额: $ 52.15万
• 依托单位: University of Utah
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-03-15 至 2011-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0640630&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Diversification; Chemical; Developmental; Defenses; Against

Plants and the insects that eat them comprise the majority of the earth's biodiversity and their interactions are extremely intense 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 in insects. How plant defenses shape plant evolution and interactions with insects will be studied in Inga, a widespread and diverse tropical tree in the pea family. Inga has an arsenal of toxic chemical defenses and also attracts defensive ants by producing nectar on leaves. To understand the costs and benefits of these defense strategies, and to see how they have changed over time, researchers will quantify defenses in many species of Inga from Panama, Ecuador and Peru, and will sequence DNA to create a phylogenetic tree. This is the first study to examine a range of chemical and non-chemical defenses, quantify their effectiveness and tradeoffs between defenses, and test their evolutionary relationships.Approximately 50% of prescription medicines are still derived from nature, so improving our understanding of where and how these chemical defenses work in nature is valuable. The ecological information about plant chemical defenses has informed a drug-discovery project in Panama that emphasized economic development and conservation. Latin American students will also be involved in the field research, thus facilitating training and better access to study abroad. The capacity-building and scientific information obtained in this project have implications for forest restoration, and are consistent with goals of conservation and international biodiversity programs.

植物和食用它们的昆虫包括地球的大部分生物多样性及其相互作用在热带森林中非常强烈。草食动物与植物之间的进化相互作用导致了“军备竞赛”，在这种情况下，植物防御的创新是通过昆虫的反适应来实现的。植物防御如何塑造植物的进化以及与昆虫的相互作用，在INGA中，这是豌豆家族中广泛而多样的热带树。 INGA具有有毒化学防御的武器库，还通过在叶子上产生花蜜来吸引防御性蚂蚁。为了了解这些防御策略的成本和收益，并了解它们如何随着时间的流逝而改变，研究人员将量化来自巴拿马，厄瓜多尔和秘鲁的INGA种类的防御，并将对DNA进行序列DNA以创建系统发育树。这是第一个研究一系列化学和非化学防御，量化其在防御之间的有效性和权衡并测试其进化关系的研究。大约有50％的处方药仍然来自自然，因此提高了我们对这些化学辩护在自然界中的何处以及如何有价值的理解。 有关植物化学防御的生态信息已告知巴拿马的一个药物发现项目，该项目强调了经济发展和保护。拉丁美洲学生还将参与现场研究，从而促进培训并更好地进入国外学习。该项目中获得的能力建设和科学信息对森林修复具有影响，并且与保护和国际生物多样性计划的目标一致。