| 项目编号: | 1601538
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| 项目名称: | DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Plant defenses in African savannas: testing the effects of induced and associational defenses on plant phenotype, fitness and diversity |
| 作者: | Robert Pringle
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| 承担单位: | Princeton University
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| 批准年: | 2016
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| 开始日期: | 2016-06-01
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| 结束日期: | 2018-05-31
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| 资助金额: | 16380
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| 资助来源: | US-NSF
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| 项目类别: | Standard Grant
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| 国家: | US
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| 语种: | 英语
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| 特色学科分类: | Biological Sciences - Environmental Biology
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| 英文关键词: | plant
; defense syndrome
; defens
; plant fitness
; plant taxa
; associational defens
; african savanna
; many plant
; defensive investment
; defensive characteristic
; focal plant species
; transplant experiment
; researcher
; mpala research centre
; interactive effect
; spine
; relative effectiveness
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| 英文摘要: | Understanding the ways in which plants modulate their vulnerability to herbivores is central to understanding patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Many plants have physical defenses such as spines, thorns, or prickles that protect them against large mammalian herbivores (e.g., elephants, giraffes, deer, and elk); however, producing and maintaining these defenses is energetically costly. As a result, plants that produce more spines and thorns are less vulnerable to herbivory, but also have fewer resources to invest in growth and reproduction, two critical components of plant fitness. This tradeoff is particularly acute for plants in dry or infertile African savannas, where resources (e.g., water and nutrients) are scarce and the risk of being eaten by large herbivores is high. As a result, theory predicts the emergence of strategies that maximize the effectiveness of defenses while reducing their cost. Two such strategies are induced defenses (produced rapidly in response to damage by herbivores) and associational defenses (reduced incidence of herbivory derived from growing in close proximity to a well-defended neighbor).
The goal of this project is to evaluate the relative effectiveness of, and interactions between, these anti-herbivore strategies and to determine how positive associational interactions among plants of different species alter patterns of resource investment. Plants facing the same evolutionary pressures frequently converge on similar suites of defensive characteristics, known as defense syndromes. In African savannas, individuals of the same species can exhibit strongly contrasting defense syndromes depending on their proximity to well-defended neighbors. Plants growing beneath thorny tree canopies, for example, produce fewer spines and exhibit a diminished induced response to simulated herbivory relative to conspecifics growing in open habitat. The researchers hypothesize that this difference is maintained by a disparity in the environmental cues that govern defensive investment in plants and will test this hypothesis using transplant experiments of focal plant species conducted inside and outside of large-herbivore exclosures in the Mpala Research Centre, Kenya. The researchers will also perform surveys of multiple species to evaluate how common intraspecific variation in defense syndrome is across plant taxa. By investigating the biotic and/or abiotic forces that maintain discrete intraspecific defense syndromes, this research will elucidate the independent and interactive effects of different anti-herbivore strategies on plant fitness and help inform the management of rangelands and the conservation of native vegetation in African savannas. |
| 资源类型: | 项目
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| 标识符: | http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/92239
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| Appears in Collections: | 全球变化的国际研究计划
科学计划与规划
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| Recommended Citation: | |
Robert Pringle. DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Plant defenses in African savannas: testing the effects of induced and associational defenses on plant phenotype, fitness and diversity. 2016-01-01.
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