Girl and boy flowers support different microbe communities.

March 25, 2019 by fredsingerecology

Most of us are accustomed to thinking about sexual dimorphism in animals. Male lions have manes, and male deer have antlers and generally larger bodies than female deer. In many species, male birds have more complex sings and more colorful plumage. Perhaps less familiar is that female insects are generally larger than males of the same species. But many of us are unaware that sexual dimorphism exists in some plant species as well.

As a child, Kaoru Tsuji spent considerable time watching insects on plants. Later, as an undergraduate at Kyoto University in Japan, she noticed that larvae of a particular geometrid moth only visited male Eurya japonica plants, but not females. This led to her graduate work on how plant sexes affect herbivorous insects, and later, more broadly, on how plant sexual dimorphism affects other species in the community.

Kaoru Tsuji gazes at female Eurya emarginata plant. Credit: Noriyo Tsuji.

At the 2014 Ecological Society of America meetings, Tsuji heard Tadashi Fukami talk about microbial communities in flower nectar, and realized that she could learn to apply Fukami’s techniques to the microbial communities living within Eurya flowers. After working three months in Tadashi’s lab, Tsuji was now ready to explore whether two plant species, Eurya japonica and Eurya emarginata, host different communities of bacteria and fungi in the flowers of male and female plants.

Male and female flowers of the two study species visited by pollinators. These photos are not to scale; in actuality the male flower is substantially larger. You can get a sense of this by noting that the same insect pollinator, the fly Stomorhina obsoleta, is pictured in figure a and near the top left of figure b.

For both species, male flowers tend to be larger, while female flowers tend to have sweeter nectar. Higher sugar levels will increase the chemical stress experienced by microbial organisms living in the nectar. Because the inside of a microbial cell has a lower sugar concentration (and thus a higher water concentration) than the sugar rich nectar environment, water tends to leave the microbial cell, leading to severe dehydration. Thus Tsuji and Fukami expected to find lower microbial abundance in female flower nectar.

Complicating this situation, animal visitors, such as bees and flies, also influence the microbial community in at least two ways. First, many nectar-colonizing microbes depend on animals to disperse them to new flowers. Second, the interaction of nectar production, water evaporation and consumption by bees and flies can change the concentration of sugar in the nectar. If there are few (or no) animals drinking the nectar, water will evaporate, sugar will remain, and the nectar will become more and more concentrated (sweeter) as more nectar is secreted over time. But if nectar gets consumed, the new secretions will simply replace the old nectar, and sugar levels should be relatively constant. Thus flowers without animal visitors should impose more chemical stress on microorganisms by virtue of being sweeter.

The researchers sampled nectar from 1736 flowers, and grew the nectar microbes on agar plates supplied with nutrients that would support either bacterial or fungal growth. In addition, the researchers also placed small-mesh bags over a subset of these flowers (before they opened), to reduce animal visitation. After five days they counted the number of colonies formed, to estimate microbial abundance. Unfortunately, microbes were rarely found in E. japonica, so most of the data are for E. emarginata flowers only.

Female flowers of Eurya emarginata visited by a fly, Stomorhina obsoleta. Agar plates showing isolated colonies of nectar-colonizing microbes are superimposed. Left and right plates have yeast and bacterial colonies, respecitevly, both isolated from E. emarginata nectar. Credit: Kaoru Tsuji and Yuichiro Kanzaki.

First, as expected, female flowers had higher nectar sugar levels than did male flowers (the Brix value measures sucrose concentration). In addition, putting a fine mesh bag over the buds substantially increased sugar levels in nectar from flowers of both sexes.

Sucrose (Brix) concentration of exposed and bagged E. emarginata flowers of both sexes. For box plots, the dark horizontal bar is the median value, while the box encloses the 25th and 75th percentile.

The proportion of flowers in which fungi and bacteria were detected was much greater in male flowers than in female flowers. In male flowers only, bagging the flowers decreased fungal frequency but not bacteria frequency.

The proportion of exposed and bagged E. emarginata flowers whose nectar, when cultured in the appropriate medium, generated fungal colonies (top graph) and bacterial colonies (bottom graph).

The researchers used colony forming units (CFUs) – the number of viable colonies on the agar plate – as their measure of bacterial abundance.

Abundance of fungi (top) and bacteria (bottom) cultured in agar plates, that were swabbed with nectar derived from exposed and bagged E. emarginata flowers of both sexes. Note that the y-axis is log₁₀ CFUs, so an increase from 3 to 4 (for example) is actually a tenfold increase in number of CFUs.

As expected, fungi were less abundant in female flower nectar than in male flower nectar. In addition, bagging the flowers substantially reduced fungal abundance. Bacteria were also less abundant in female flower nectar than in male flower nectar. Surprisingly, bagging the flowers substantially increased bacterial abundance, despite the increased chemical stress and decreased visitation by animal visitors.

Why did bacterial abundance increase when flowers were bagged? The researchers hypothesize that reduced fungal dispersal from bagging caused competitive release of bacteria from the fungi. Presumably the fungi and bacteria compete for essential resources (such as amino acids) in the nectar. Because the bags reduce fungal abundance, there are fewer fungi to out-compete the bacteria, leading to an increase in bacterial abundance.

The researchers used DNA analysis to characterize which microbial species were found in female vs. male flowers. They discovered major differences in species composition between the sexes. Taken together with the data on frequency and abundance, it is clear that sexual dimorphism in these plants influences microbial communities in significant ways. Tsuji and Fukami suggest that sexual dimorphism in many species may have profound community-wide consequences that researchers are only beginning to understand and uncover.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Ecology. The reference is Tsuji, K. and Fukami, T. (2018), Community‐wide consequences of sexual dimorphism: evidence from nectar microbes in dioecious plants. Ecology, 99: 2476-2484. doi:10.1002/ecy.2494. Thanks to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2018 by the Ecological Society of America. All rights reserved.

What grows up must go down: plant species richness and soils below.

November 29, 2018 by fredsingerecology

Almost 20 years ago, Dorota Porazinska was a postdoctoral researcher investigating whether plant diversity influenced the diversity of organisms that lived in the soil below these plants, including bacteria, protists, fungi and nematodes (collectively known as soil biota). Surprisingly, she and her colleagues discovered no linkages between aboveground and belowground species diversity. She suspected that two issues were responsible for this lack of linkage. First, the early study lumped related species into functional groups – for example nematodes that eat bacteria, or nematodes that eat fungi. Lumping simplifies data collection but loses a lot of data because individual species are not distinguished. Back in those days, identifying species with DNA analysis was time-consuming, expensive, and often impractical. The second issue was that even if aboveground-belowground diversity was linked, it might be difficult to detect. Ecosystems are very complex, and many belowground species make a living off of legacies of carbon or other nutrients that are the remains of organisms that lived many generations ago. These legacy organic nutrient pools allow for indirect (and thus more difficult to detect) linkages between aboveground and belowground species.

Porazinska and her colleagues reasoned that if there were aboveground/belowground relationships, they would be easiest to detect in the simplest ecosystems that lacked significant pools of legacy nutrients. They also used molecular techniques that were not readily available for earlier studies to identify distinct species based on DNA analysis. The researchers established 98 1-m radius circular plots at the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research Site in the Colorado, USA Rocky Mountains. At each plot, they identified and counted each vascular plant, and recorded the presence of moss and lichen. They also censused soil biota by using a variety of DNA amplification and isolation techniques that allowed them to identify bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi and nematodes to species.

Field assistant Jarred Huxley surveys plants in a high species richness plot. Credit Dorota L. Porazinska.

As expected in this alpine environment, plant species richness was quite low, averaging only 8 species per plot (range = 0 – 27). In contrast to what had been found in other ecosystems, high plant diversity was associated with high diversity of soil biota.

Relationship between plant richness (x-axis) and soil biota richness (y-axis) for (A) bacteria, (B) eukaryotes (excluding fungi and nematodes), (C) fungi, and (D) nematodes. OTUs are operational taxonomic units, which represent organisms with very similar or identical DNA sequences on a marker gene. For our purposes, they represent distinct species.

Looking at the graphs above, you can see that different groups responded to different degrees; nematodes had the strongest response to increases in plant richness while fungi had the weakest response. When viewed at a finer level, some groups of soil organisms, including photosynthetic microorganisms such as cyanobacteria and green algae actually decreased, presumably in response to competition with aboveground plants for light and possibly nutrients.

Given the strong relationship between plant species richness and soil biota richness, Porazinska and her colleagues next explored whether high plant richness was associated with soil nutrient levels (nutrient pools). In general, there was a strong correlation between plant species richness and nutrient pools (see graphs below). But soil moisture, and the ability of soil to hold moisture were the two most important factors associated with nutrient pools.

Amount (micrograms per gram of soil) of carbon (left graph) and nitrogen (right graph) in relation to plant species richness.

Ecologists studying soil processes can measure the rates at which microorganisms are metabolizing nutrients such as carbon, phosphorus and nitrogen. The expectation was that if high plant species richness was associated with higher soil biota richness, and larger soil nutrient pools, then the activity of enzymes that metabolize soil nutrients should proportionally increase with these factors. The researchers found that enzyme activity was very low where plants were absent or rare, and greatest in complex plant communities. But the most important factors influencing enzyme activity were the amount of organic carbon present within the soil, and the ability of the soil to hold water.

Patchy vegetation at the field site. Credit: Cliffton P. Bueno de Mesquita.

Porazinska and her colleagues hypothesize that the relationship between plant species richness, soil biota richness, nutrient pools, and soil processes such as enzyme activity, exist in most ecosystems, but are obscured by indirect linkages between these different levels. They hypothesize that these relationships in other ecosystems such as grasslands and forests are difficult to observe. In these more complex ecosystems, carbon inputs into the soil form large legacy carbon pools. These carbon pools, and the ability of the soil to hold nutrient pools, fundamentally influence the abundance and richness of soil biota. In contrast, in nutrient-poor soils, such as high Rocky Mountain alpine meadows, legacy carbon pools are rare and small. Consequently, plants and soil biota interact more directly, and correlations between plant species diversity and soil biota diversity are much easier to detect.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Ecology. The reference is Porazinska, D. L., Farrer, E. C., Spasojevic, M. J., Bueno de Mesquita, C. P., Sartwell, S. A., Smith, J. G., White, C. T., King, A. J., Suding, K. N. and Schmidt, S. K. (2018), Plant diversity and density predict belowground diversity and function in an early successional alpine ecosystem. Ecology, 99: 1942-1952. doi:10.1002/ecy.2420. Thanks to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2018 by the Ecological Society of America. All rights reserved.

Fungi attack plants – insects respond!

April 15, 2018 by fredsingerecology

As she was preparing to do her dissertation research on the interactions between the Asian chestnut gall wasp, the chestnut blight disease and the European chestnut, Pilar Fernandez-Conradi read a lot of papers about fungal-insect-plant interactions. She was impressed by the diversity of outcomes that resulted when plants were attacked by both insects and fungi, and wondered whether there were any generalities to glean from these research findings. She asked two basic questions. First, if a plant is infected by a fungus, is it more or less likely to be attacked by insects than is an uninfected plant? Second, does an insect that attacks a fungal-infected plant perform better or worse than it would have on an uninfected plant?

Three-way interaction between the chestnut tree, the chestnut gall wasp, and the fungus Gnomopsis castanea. Female wasps induce the plant to create galls, which house developing larvae. Green globular galls (with a hint of rose-color) have not been infected by a fungus, while the very dark tissue is the the remains of a gall that was attacked by the fungus. Credit: Pilar Fernandez-Conradi.

Fernandez-Conradi and her colleagues thought they were more likely to discover a negative effect of fungal infection on the preference and performance of herbivorous insects. Several studies had shown that nutrient quantity and quality of host plants is reduced by fungal infection, so it makes sense that insects would avoid infected plants. But the researchers also knew that fungal infection can, in some cases, actually increase the sugar concentration of some plants, so insects might prefer those plants and also develop more rapidly on them. In addition, fungal infection can induce chemical defenses in plants that might make them less palatable to insects, or alternatively, fungal infection could weaken plant defenses making them more palatable to attacking insects.

To resolve this conundrum, Fernandez-Conradi and her colleagues did a meta-analysis, of the existing literature, identifying 1113 case studies based on 101 papers. To be considered in the meta-analysis, all of the studies had to meet the following criteria: (1) report insect preference or performance on fungal-infected vs. uninfected plants, (2) report the Genus or species of the plant, fungus and insect, (3) report the mean response and a measure of variation (standard error, standard deviation or variance). The measure of variation allows researchers to calculate the effect size, which calculates the strength of the relationship that is being explored. The researchers found that, in general, insects avoid and perform worse on infected plants than they do on uninfected plants.

Mean effect size of insect preference and performance (combined) in response to fungal infection infection. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals (CIs). In this graph, and the next two graphs as well, a solid data point indicates a statistically significant effect. You can also visually test for statistical significance by noting that the error bar does not cross the dashed vertical line that represents no effect (at the 0.0 value). The negative value indicates that insects respond negatively to fungal infection.

Fernandez-Conradi and her colleagues then broke down the data to explore several questions in more detail. For example, they wondered if the type of fungus mattered. For their meta-analysis, they considered three types of fungi with different lifestyles: (1) biotrophic pathogens that develop on and extract nutrients from living plant tissues, (2) necrotrophic pathogens that secrete enzymes that kill plant cells, so they can develop and feed on the dead tissue, and (3) endophytes that live inside living plant tissue without causing visible disease symptoms.

Effect of fungus lifestyle on insect performance. k = the number of studies. Different letters to the right of CIs indicate significant differences among the variables (lifestyles).

The meta-analysis showed an important fungus-lifestyle effect (see the graph to your left). Insect performance was strongly reduced in biotrophic pathogens and endophytes, but not in necrotrophic pathogens, where insect performance actually improved slightly (but not significantly). The researchers point out that biotrophic pathogens and endophytes both develop in living plant tissues, while necrotrophic pathogens release cell-wall degrading enzymes which can cause the plant to release sugars and other nutrients. These nutrients obviously benefit the fungus, but can additionally benefit insects that feed on the plants.

To further explore this lifestyle effect, Fernandez-Conradi and her colleagues broke down insect response into performance and preference, focusing on chewing insects, for which there were the most data. Insects showed lower performance on and reduced preference (i.e. increased avoidance) for plants infected with biotrophic pathogens. They also performed equally poorly on endophyte-infected plants, but did not avoid endophyte-infected plants (see graph below). This was surprising since you would expect natural selection to favor insects that can choose the best plants to feed on. The problem for insects may be that endophytic infection is basically symptomless, so the insects may, in many cases, be unable to tell that the plant is infected, and likely to be less nutritionally rewarding.

Effects of fungal infection on preference and performance of chewing insects. k = the number of studies. Different letters to the right of CIs indicate significant differences among the variables. Variables that share one letter have similar effect sizes.

Many ecological studies deal with two interacting species: a predator and a prey, or a parasite and its host. Fernandez-Conradi and her colleagues remind us that though two-species interactions are much easier to study, many important real-world interactions involve three or more species. Their meta-analysis highlights that plant infection by pathogenic and endophytic fungi reduces the performance and preference of insects that feed on these plants. But fungus lifestyle plays an important role, and may have different effects on performance and preference. Their meta-analysis also suggests other related avenues for research. For example, how are plant-fungus-insect interactions modified by other species, such as viruses, bacteria and parasitoids (an animal that lives on or inside an insect, and feeds on its tissues)? Or, what are the underlying molecular (hormonal) mechanisms that determine the response of the plant to fungal infection, and to insect attack? Finally, how does time influence both plant and insect response? If a plant is recently infected by a fungus, does it have a different effect on insect performance and preference than does a plant that has suffered from chronic infection. There are very few data on these (and other) questions, but they are more likely to get pursued now that some basic relationships have been uncovered.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Ecology. The reference is Fernandez‐Conradi, P., Jactel, H., Robin, C., Tack, A.J. and Castagneyrol, B., 2018. Fungi reduce preference and performance of insect herbivores on challenged plants. Ecology, 99(2), pp.300-311. Thanks to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2018 by the Ecological Society of America. All rights reserved.

Nitrogen nurses

May 10, 2017 by fredsingerecology

Alfred Lord Tennyson puzzled over the conflict between love as a foundation of Christianity, and the apparent violence of the natural world.

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation’s final law

Tho’ nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek’d against his creed

The good poet would be relieved to learn that modern ecologists have uncovered a softer, gentler side of the natural world – facilitative interactions, in which one species (the facilitator) helps out a second species. In many, but not all, cases, the second species also helps out the first species. Ecologists describe these mutually-beneficial interactions as mutualisms. As an example, Mimosa luisana is a mutualist with Rhizobium bacteria, providing the bacteria with root nodules to live in and carbohydrates as an energy source, while receiving ammonia (NH₃) that the bacteria fix (convert) from atmospheric N₂. A second type of mutualism, a mycorrhizal association, is a very common facilitative interaction between plants and fungi, which grow alongside or within the plant roots. In many mycorrhizal associations, the plant provides carbohydrates to the fungi, which import and share nutrients and water.

Alicia Montesinos-Navarro and her colleagues, and researchers before them, noticed that in arid and semi-arid environments, plant-plant facilitation was most common between two plant species that were structurally and functionally very distinct, and that tended to be very distantly related to each other. In particular, M. luisana tends to associate with many different species of plants, including many cacti that look nothing like it, and are very distantly related. M. luisana is called a nurse plant, because other species tend to grow under its branches, which shade the soil and reduce water loss from evaporation. Recent work by Montesinos-Navarro and her colleagues showed another benefit of nursing – some plants receive nitrogen from these nurse plants via the network of mycorrhizal fungi.

Traditionally, ecologists have argued that associations between distantly-related plants occur because the plants have very different ecological niches, using different resources in different ways, so they are not competing with each other. Montesinos-Navarro and her colleagues argue that a second process might be important in this and other systems. Close relatives of M. luisana might tend to have high nitrogen levels and thus not benefit from nitrogen transfer from the nurse plant, while more distantly-related plants might tend to have lower nitrogen levels and thus benefit from any nitrogen arriving from M. luisana. They explored this hypothesis in the semi-arid Valley of Zapotitlan in the state of Puebla, Mexico.

Study site dominated by the columnar cactus Neobuxbaimia tetezo, Credit: Alicia Montesinos-Navarro.

Measuring nitrogen transfer from the nurse plant to the recipient is not the world’s easiest task. Fortunately there is a rare form or isotope of nitrogen, ¹⁵N, which can be distinguished from the more common ¹⁴N. The researchers soaked M. luisana leaves in urea that was made up of primarily ¹⁵N, and the leaves took up the urea. Consequently, any exported nitrogen would contain a disproportionately high concentration of ¹⁵N, resulting in high ¹⁵N levels in the recipient plant. They then measured ¹⁵N levels in 14 different species of plants that used M. luisana as their nurse. The researchers were able to test two hypotheses. First, they could see whether close relatives to M. luisana tended to have higher N-levels than more distantly related species. Second they could see whether distant relatives tended to receive more nitrogen from nurse plants than did close relatives.

Mimosa luisana branch taking up ¹⁵N-labeled urea. Credit: Alicia Montesinos-Navarro.

The graph below summarizes the results. The y-axis measures how much the ¹⁵N level in the facilitated species increased by the end of the experiment (15 days). The x-axis measures the evolutionary relationship between M. luisana and the facilitated species – more precisely how long ago the two species shared a common ancestor. Lastly, the size of the dot measures the initial difference in leaf N-levels between M. luisana and the facilitated plant.

Influence of evolutionary relationship between M. luisana and the facilitated species (x- axis) and nitrogen gradient – the initial difference in nitrogen levels between the two species (size of dots) on the amount of nitrogen imported by the facilitated species.

Several trends are evident. First, close relatives of M. luisana tended to have similar leaf nitrogen values to M. luisana (medium sized dots), while distant relatives tended to have much less nitrogen than M. luisana (largest dots). Second, the most distant relatives tended to have the greatest increase in their ¹⁵N levels, which indicates that they received the greatest nitrogen export from their nurses.

One question is how the nitrogen is transported. Montesinos-Navarro and her colleagues describe how they treated soil with a fungicide, presumably killing the mycorrhizae, which resulted in a substantial reduction in nitrogen transport. This suggests that the mycorrhizal network is important for nitrogen transport. But more pressing is what do the nurse plants get out of the relationship. The researchers suggest that the recipient plants may provide M. luisana with either water or phosphorus, both of which may be in short supply in arid environments.

This study indicates that we need to look beyond traditional niche theory, and may need to dig deeper to understand the structure of plant communities, and how facilitative interactions can explain the coexistence of very distantly related plants.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Ecology. The reference is Montesinos‐Navarro, A., Verdú, M., Querejeta, J. I., & Valiente‐Banuet, A. (2017). Nurse plants transfer more nitrogen to distantly related species. Ecology, 98(5), 1300-1310. Thanks to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2017 by the Ecological Society of America. All rights reserved.

Cottonwood genes and spider hostels

March 22, 2017 by fredsingerecology

Back in my working days, people that I met would sometimes ask me what I did for my research. I usually told them that I studied spider sex, which, while true, was a bit misleading, as my interests were actually slightly broader. But studying spider sex was a good fit for my disposition, because, more than anybody I know, I can stare at something for a very long time and not get bored. And when spiders have sex, there can be very long periods, when, to our eyes, nothing is going on. As it turns out there is a great deal of pheromonal communication going on, and considerable vibrational activity as well, but it is not that easy for humans (even abnormally patient ones) to detect.

A spider and her three egg cases within a web she has built in a Taphrina blister. Credit Matt Barbour

The point is that I have a very soft spot in my heart for spiders, and was delighted to learn about an indirect process that provided a comfortable home for needy spiders. Heather Slinn got interested in her project while an undergraduate summer intern. Her colleague, Matt Barbour, pointed out that when he flipped over blistered black cottonwood leaves (Populus trichocarpa) he often found a spider hanging out in there. This observation led to her to study the relationship between cottonwood trees, cottonwood genetics, pathogens that make leaf blisters and spider occupancy rates.

Taphrina fungi form cup-like blisters in the leaves of Populous trees. But these trees vary in how susceptible they are to leaf blisters. The researchers wanted to answer three questions about this relationship. First, do spiders prefer to live in leaf-blisters as opposed to unblistered leaves? Second, are differences in tree susceptibility to Taphrina a result of genetic differences between the trees? And third can differences in Taphrina-resistance account for differences in spider density?

One of the keys to the experiment was establishing a garden with distinct clones of trees of known genetic makeup (genotypes). Slinn and her colleagues studied five different genotypes, with approximately 40 trees per genotype. They dutifully watered them throughout the summer, and then sampled up to 30 leaves from each tree for blister density, blister size, and spider residency, using a modified shop vac to suck up all of the spiders.

Black Cottonwood garden. Credit Matt Barbour

The researchers discovered that blistered leaves were 35 times more likely to have a spider and/or spider web than were unblistered leaves. Clearly spiders found blistered leaves to be highly attractive homes.

But there were pronounced differences among the five genotypes in blister density, blister size, spider density and the probability that a spider was occupying a blister. Graph A shows that genotypes 1 and 3 (G1 and G3) had the lowest mean density of blisters (about 2 or 3 per meter of plant), while G4 averaged about 20 blisters per meter. Although G3 had relatively few blisters, it did boast the largest blisters (see graph B). The researchers concluded that blister density and size were both under genetic control, but not linked to each other.

Mean (A) blister density (number per meter of plant) and (B) blister size, for the five tree genotypes.

But how did blister density and size influence spider residency? G4, the genotype with the greatest number of blisters per plant, also had the greatest number of spiders (graph C). But on a per blister basis, we can see that the two genotypes with the largest blisters (G2 and G3 – see graph B) also had the highest probability of housing a spider in their blisters (graph D). So when spiders make decisions about where to live, both size and number are important.

Mean (C) spider density and (D) probability a blister hosts a spider, for the five tree genotypes.

It is unclear why the spiders are attracted to blisters. Some spider species have been shown to be attracted to structural complexity, because that provides more or better attachment points for web strands and egg cases. Depressed blisters may also give protection from abiotic factors such as wind and precipitation.

Like most good studies, this research raises a host of related questions. Why is there so much genetic variation in Taphrina-resistance within this tree species? Slinn suggests that there may be tradeoff whereby investment into Taphrina-resistance might compromise a plant’s ability to invest in other functions such as cold-resistance, or rapid growth and/or high reproductive rates. A second question is how does spider presence influence other species – for example does hosting a spider reduce the number of herbivorous insects that might attack the tree? A third issue raised by the authors is that plants infected with Taphrina may be weaker and more susceptible to herbivores. In that case, the spiders may be present in blisters because they are attracted to the herbivores that are eating the leaves. And finally, herbivores eating the leaves may transmit other diseases affecting our forests, such as dutch elm disease, chestnut blight and white pine blister rust. Unraveling this complex chain of events will keep researchers busy for many years.

note: the paper that describes this research is from the journal Ecology. The reference is Slinn, H. L., Barbour, M. A., Crawford, K. M., Rodriguez‐Cabal, M. A., & Crutsinger, G. M. (2016). Genetic variation in resistance to leaf fungus indirectly affects spider density. Ecology 98(3): 875-881. Thanks to the Ecological Society of America for allowing me to use figures from the paper. Copyright © 2017 by the Ecological Society of America. All rights reserved.

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How new research expands our understanding of the natural world

Tag Archives: Fungi