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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Gynodioecy And Biotic Interactions: Plant Traits, Insect Preferences, And Population-Level Consequences, Laura A. D. Doubleday
Gynodioecy And Biotic Interactions: Plant Traits, Insect Preferences, And Population-Level Consequences, Laura A. D. Doubleday
Doctoral Dissertations
In species with distinct sexes, differences between the sexes often affect interspecific interactions. In gynodioecious flowering plants, where individuals are female or hermaphrodite, both pollinators and herbivores tend to prefer hermaphrodites. Because pollinators and herbivores affect plant fitness, their preferences have consequences for plant mating patterns, natural selection on mating-related traits, and plant breeding system evolution. Being sessile, the spatial arrangement of females and hermaphrodites in gynodioecious plant populations alters conspecific density and sex ratio locally, which can also have important fitness effects. My dissertation combines observational studies in natural Silene vulgaris populations and simulation modeling to address questions about …
Specialization And Trade-Offs In Plant-Feeding Insects, Daniel Peterson
Specialization And Trade-Offs In Plant-Feeding Insects, Daniel Peterson
Doctoral Dissertations
The immense diversity of life on Earth has been attributed to the partitioning of available resources into ecological niches, but it is not obvious what determines the niche size of each species. For example, most plant-feeding insects consume only one or a few closely-related host-plant species despite the advantages of having a broader diet. Many researchers have therefore suggested that the evolution of broad diets in plant-feeding insects must be constrained by genetic trade-offs between adaptations to alternative host-plants. Despite its intuitive feel, however, little empirical evidence in support of the trade-off hypothesis has emerged from decades of experimental studies …
Spatial Variation And Tradeoffs In Species Interactions, Holly L. Bernardo
Spatial Variation And Tradeoffs In Species Interactions, Holly L. Bernardo
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
The geographic mosaic theory of coevolution predicts that spatial differences in species interactions result in a patchwork of evolutionary hot and cold spots across a landscape. We used horsenettle (Solanum carolinense L.), a perennial weed with a diverse insect community found in old fields and meadows, to examine local adaptation and resource-mediated selection. The goals of this study were to (1) determine the potential for a selection mosaic by identifying local adaptation through trait-interaction matching with herbivores, pollinations and plant competitors, and (2) determine the potential for indirect selection through resource allocation tradeoffs. The potential for local adaptation was determined …