Flowers, aphids and ants: a love story

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Flowers, aphids and ants a love story

• Team Echinacea
• Summer 2009

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Once upon a time

• Fragmentation broke up virtually continuous
  prairie habitat filled with Echinacea
  angustifolia.

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Echinacea distribution
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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

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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.

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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).

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Fitness of inb1 plants
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Herbivory
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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?

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Aphis echinaceae
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Aphid abundance
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Ant abundance
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Conceptual diagram
5a
5s
3a
3s
2a
2s
4s
4a
1
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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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Ecological stoichiometry

• The study of the balance of chemical elements in
  ecological interactions.