Personalia Congratulations to Kate LeCroy and James McDaniel, Jon Richey, Clayton Visger, all BSA members who are winners of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Award! These are past PLANTS program participants and we are extremely proud of them.
Kate LeCroy I plan to study how climate warming may disrupt the dynamics of pollination communities. How will climate change alter insect pollination? This question has not been fully empirically answered from a community perspective. Plant species with overlapping phenologies may indirectly interact via shared pollinators, and these interactions can have negative (competition -,-; e.g. for pollinator visits or increased heterospecific pollen transfer) or positive (facilitation +,0; +,+; e.g. simultaneous facilitation or sequential facilitation) effects. Disruption of these interactions can have consequences for quantity and quality of pollen received and thus could affect reproductive fitness. Previous research also projects altered pollinator phenology or pollinator loss, which could further exacerbate disruption of these interactions. I will analyze pollination quantity and quality in manipulated plant communities that reflect projected scenarios of climate warming for plants and pollinators. This research will be conducted in the serpentine seep communities of northern California, an ecosystem type that is highly vulnerable to biodiversity loss. My experimental work will answer the call to solve outstanding questions concerning how climate change will affect plant phenological overlap, plant-pollinator interactions, and plant fitness.
James McDaniel As a graduate student in Ken Cameron’s lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I have started collecting preliminary data on the genus Porroglossum within the orchid subtribe Pleurothallidinae. My original intent was to work with the genus Zootrophion; however, I have quickly discovered that the rarity of this genus in the wild and cultivation makes it impractical to work with. As a result, I have switched gears to the genus Porroglossum, which is more accessible in regards to gathering data. Porroglossum is fascinating because the plants have an active labellum that, when stimulated by an insect, snaps shut. This mechanism allows Porroglossum to entrap insects as a means of ensuring that pollination occurs. Of the 48 species in the genus, I have DNA from ca. 75% of them from which I have successfully amplified three gene regions: nrITS, trnL-F and ycf1. My plan is to construct a fully resolved phylogeny for the entire genus using Maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods. From there, I will use the phylogeny to address ecological and evolutionary questions. Ultimately, I plan to discover the mechanism(s) responsible for active movement in the labellum, shed light on pollinator-plant relationships, characterize floral fragrance profiles using GC/MS, and test clade hypotheses set forth by Carl Luer in his monograph Icones Pleurothallidinarum IV. 53