Perturbation of biological communities, exemplified by habitat loss and the invasion of novel taxa, is well documented. Economic development, new technologies, and population pressure have escalated the scale, frequency, and severity of such perturbations. As a result, evolutionary and ecological dynamics may be driven so far from their equilibria that the linear approximations used for understanding and predicting consequences of subtle perturbation are inappropriate and probably misleading. The management of pests and beneficial organisms in agricultural systems and the conservation of native species in native habitat have been foci of extensive ecological and evolutionary research.
We propose to build a modeling framework on this background, elucidating the consequences of massive perturbation in biological communities. We will model spatially-explicit, non-equilibrial systems whose dynamics are complicated by (i) ecological, (ii) genetic, and (iii) historical factors. Our empirical studies emphasize four focal species and specific organisms associated with them: Corn smut and corn, Rhizobia associated with common bean, Corn borer and Bt and non-Bt corn, Echinacea and other prairie plants and their pollinators.
Both corn and beans were introduced in the recent past; genetically modified corn is currently introduced; habitat fragmentation is an ongoing process. All of these are massive perturbations over very short periods of time.
The empirical studies will be framed by a general model of interactions between a host and its associates. We propose a hierarchy of models at different spatial scales to determine the role of the different factors at different spatial scales. In addition, statistical tools will be developed to analyze data of genetic diversity under non-equilibrium conditions using both temporal and spatial information.
These studies will enable us to predict the evolutionary and ecological consequences of large range expansions and contractions of plants on their associated biological communities.
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