Project Details
Description
The effects of increasing plant biodiversity on higher trophic levels have been mainly studied with a focus on plant species richness. More recently, the role of plant intraspecific diversity has come into focus, because plant variation is known to strongly affect the plant-associated insect community. I propose to manipulate the intraspecific chemical diversity, i.e., chemodiversity, of Tanacetum vulgare at the plant community level, to study the interactions between this plant, its herbivores and the natural enemies of the herbivores, but also the interactions with further species such as aphid-tending ants. Tanacetum vulgare is highly diverse in leaf terpenoid content and variation in chemodiversity between individual plants has already been shown to affect the insect community on the plant. In a field experiment, plant communities consisting only of T. vulgare but with different numbers of chemotypes (1, 2, 3 or 6) will be created and the insect community associated with these plant communities will be studied. I will characterise the headspace volatiles of individual plants within the plant communities differing in chemodiversity level (together with P6), and use metabolic fingerprinting to analyse their metabolic fingerprints (with P5). A particular focus will be on the role of top-down vs. bottom up control of herbivores and the damage done to the plants. These will be further elucidated in laboratory and field manipulations of the presence of ants and predators, and by studying the competitive interactions between different aphid species in additional experiments. Predation pressure, damage to plants and plant fitness will be quantified in all plant communities in the field. There will be close collaboration on the ecological consequences of chemodiversity in T. vulgare with P5 and P6, and the dimension of within-population chemodiversity with P8 and P10. Characterisation of chemotypes will be done in collaboration with P5 and P6 and analyses compared to approaches of P2 and P3. Effects of chemodiversity on insect communities will be compared to results of P1–P4. The effect of chemodiversity of plant communities on associated insect communities will be analysed using measures developed in P10, and the data obtained from the field experiment will inform modelling approaches of P9. In a potential second phase, new plant communities with particular combinations of chemotypes and chemodiversity levels will be created that are predicted to show low and high levels of herbivore control. The role of individual chemotypes and particular compounds will be further elucidated using additional bioassays and choice experiments. This project will provide insights in how plant chemodiversity varies within and among individuals of T. vulgare. Furthermore, it will help disentangling the role of plant chemodiversity in shaping ecological communities.
Status | Active |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 1/01/20 → … |