US-Chile Planning Visit to Establish a Collaborative Study on the Role of Ecological Gradients in Shaping Mutualistic and Antagonistic Interactions

美国-智利计划访问，就生态梯度在塑造互利和对抗相互作用中的作用开展合作研究

• 批准号: 1404687
• 负责人: Sergio Rasmann
• 金额: $ 6.95万
• 依托单位: University of California-Irvine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-12-15 至 2018-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1404687&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: US; Chile; Planning; Visit; Establish

US-CHILE PLANNING VISIT TO ESTABLISH A COLLABORATIVE STUDY ON THE ROLE OF ECOLOGICAL GRADIENTS IN SHAPING MUTUALISTIC AND ANTAGONISTIC INTERACTIONSThis proposal seeks to create a new intellectual partnership between US and Chilean researchers to explore the dynamics of interactions between plants and animals along steep elevation gradients. The Chilean collaborators are the entomologist Dr. Cristian Villagra (Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educacion), and the chemical ecologist Dr. Alejandro Urzua (Universitad de Santiago), while the US-based collaborator is Dr. Sergio Rasmann (University of California, Irvine), an evolutionary ecologist who studies the chemical make-up of plant-insect interaction. This study will investigate the origin of the diversity of interactions between plants, the insects that pollinate their flowers, and the insects that consume them (herbivores). The central focus of this project is to determine how these interactions are shaped by ecological gradients, plant chemistry, and/or evolutionary history. By understanding the forces that shape species interaction, the researchers will shade light on the mechanisms that generate and maintain biodiversity on Earth. Natural communities are maintained and have evolved along complex webs of mutualistic and antagonistic interactions. How these interactions, between plants, their pollinators, and their antagonistic herbivores, are shaped by natural selection and maintained within particular habitats remains a dominant question in community ecology. The international collaboration will take advantage of the plant genus Haplopappus (Asteraceae), which includes 60 species scattered from the Pacific coast up to 5000 m above sea level in the Chilean cordillera. The goal of this project is to evaluate the true functionality of Haplopappus spp. flower and leaf morphology and chemical make-up diversity along steep elevation gradients, and to dissect how biotic or abiotic factors, or evolutionary constraints interact to maintain community variation across contrasting habitats. This proposed project will specifically ask: 1) How do animal community and plant traits change along elevation gradients in Chile? 2) What are the biotic and abiotic constraints in maintaining the faunal diversity of pollinators? And 3) how does plant chemistry influences plant-animal species interactions?

美国智商计划的访问建立了一项关于生态梯度在塑造相互作用和拮抗互动中作用的合作研究，这些提议旨在建立我们与智利研究人员之间建立新的知识伙伴关系，以探索沿陡峭海拔梯度的植物与动物之间相互作用的动态。 智利合作者是昆虫学家克里斯蒂安·韦拉格拉（Cristian Villagra）博士（大都会大学de ciencias de la Educacion），化学生态学家Alejandro Urzua（Santiago大学），而总部位于美国的合作者是Sergio Rasmann博士（Sergio Rasmann博士）尔湾（Irvine），一位进化生态学家，研究了植物 - 内相互作用的化学构成。这项研究将研究植物之间相互作用的多样性，授粉花朵的昆虫以及食用它们的昆虫（草食动物）。该项目的主要重点是确定这些相互作用是如何由生态梯度，植物化学和/或进化史塑造的。通过了解塑造物种相互作用的力，研究人员将启示产生和维持地球生物多样性的机制。维持自然社区并沿着复杂的相互作用和对抗相互作用的网络发展。这些相互作用，植物，传粉媒介和它们的拮抗食草动物之间的相互作用如何受到自然选择的影响并保持在特定的栖息地中仍然是社区生态学中的主要问题。国际合作将利用植物属Haplopappus（Asteraceae），其中包括从太平洋海岸散布的60种，最高可在智利山脉的海平面高达5000 m。该项目的目的是评估Haplopappus spp的真实功能。花和叶子的形态和化学构成多样性沿陡峭的海拔梯度，并剖析生物或非生物因素或进化约束如何相互作用，以保持对比鲜明栖息地的社区变化。这个拟议的项目将特别提出：1）动物界和植物特征如何沿智利的海拔梯度改变？ 2）在维持传粉媒介的动物多样性方面有什么生物和非生物限制？ 3）植物化学如何影响植物 - 动物的物种相互作用？