flowers, aphids and ants: a love story team echinacea summer 2009
Post on 17-Dec-2015
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Once upon a time …
• Fragmentation broke up virtually continuous prairie habitat filled with Echinacea angustifolia.
Once upon a time …
• Fragmentation broke up virtually continuous prairie habitat filled with Echinacea angustifolia.
• Remnant populations, in small patches of habitat untouched by cultivation, remain.
• Fragmentation has ecological and evolutionary effects on populations.– Alteration of mating patterns
Mating patterns
• Which individual a plant mates with can depend on …– Proximity to other plants– Movement of pollinators– Genetic compatibility– Human intervention
• Fragmentation can increase matings between relatives.
• Restorations may increase matings between remnant populations.
Study of mating patterns• Collected seeds from open pollinated heads in
several remnant populations in Douglas County.
• Plants them in the common garden (96/97 garden).
• Hand-crossed individuals in 1999 and 2000.– Between remnant crosses– Random, within remnant crosses– Sib-crosses (individuals from the same head in the
remnant)• Planted them in the common garden (inb1).
Community genetics
• Study of how the genetic composition of one species can affect composition and structure of its community.
• Example- genetic diversity of Solidago altissima plots affects the diversity of herbivores observed within the plots (Crutsinger et al. 2006).
• Could mating patterns of Echinacea have impacts on the community?
Conceptual diagram
Plant size, morphology,
phenology, etc.
Plant stoichiometry
Plant cross typePlant cross type
Ant abundanceAnt abundance
Aphid abundanceAphid abundanceAphid stoichiometry
Ant stoichiometry
Plant biochemistry,
etc.
#5a
#4s
#5s #3a#3s
#2a#2s
#1
#4a
Future directions
• What is maximum abundance of aphids?• When does aphid abundance peak?• Can we estimate aphid population growth
rate on individual plants?• Are common garden and remnant aphid
population dynamics the same?• Why do ants tend aphids?• Others?
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