Collaborative Research: BEE: Ecological and coevolutionary feedbacks in multi-mutualist communities

University Of Massachusetts Boston, Dorchester MA

Investigators

Abstract

Mutualisms are beneficial interactions between species that are important in natural communities and agricultural systems because they generate critical resources and services needed for species to persist. For example, pollination mutualisms are essential for fruit production in many crop plants, and pollinators are dependent on the food they obtain from those flowers. Mutualisms, in general, usually involve many species interacting with one another in complex communities, yet we know relatively little about the factors that govern them. Thus, as global change continues to alter ecosystems on Earth, there is a strong need to understand how species that form mutualisms change in response to the environment and to one another. For instance, the presence of competitive species that use the resources made by mutualists could alter the way in which the mutualists change in response to one another. This research will examine how large groups of mutualist species change in response to each other across different environments and how other competitive species can influence these changes. The project uses an experimental system based on brewer’s yeast to understand how species change in response to one another in complex mutualisms involving many species. In addition to testing how mutualisms change in species rich communities, an engaging video game will be developed to teach high school students about the economic value of mutualisms and how they change over time. The project will use a laboratory-based nutritional mutualism composed of strains of budding yeast that exchange nutrient resources with each other, thus simulating mutualistic species. Using this system, the researchers will manipulate the number of mutualist species in the communities and the amount of environmentally-available resources to address the following goals: 1) Evaluate how reciprocal trait changes (i.e., coevolution) vary in complex mutualist communities with and without traded resources additionally available from the local environment, 2) Test how coevolution influences the establishment of new mutualists in species-rich mutualist communities, 3) Test how a competitive species alters the coevolution of mutualists and how coevolution impacts mutualism resistance to these competitors. Results from the proposed study will identify the ecological contexts that affect coevolution in mutualisms, the evolutionary contexts that allows establishment of nonresident species, and how coevolution impacts ecological persistence of mutualists and competitive species. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.