Pollination biology: from genes to communities

• Grant number: 15/06925-1
• Support type: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Duration: October 27, 2015 - November 11, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Botany
• Principal researcher: Marlies Sazima
• Grantee: Marlies Sazima
• Visiting researcher: Nickolas M. Waser
• Visiting researcher institution: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States
• Home Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This proposal aims to invite and support the visit of Dr. Nickolas Waser to Brazil. Dr. Waser is a Professor at both, The University of Arizona and The University of California - Riverside and also a researcher at The Rocky Mountain Laboratory. Part of this project is funded by Unicamp by providing the visit of Dr. Mary Price at the same time. Waser and Price have been working together since 1970 reaching the international leadership in many areas of pollination ecology, such as the evolution of pollination systems, the role of functional trait mediation in plant-pollinator community structure, among others. Both, Waser and Price have signed many seminal papers in pollination biology, five of them published in Nature. Currently, there are members of this proposing time collaborating on manuscripts with both, Dr. Waser and Price. The graduate course where Dr. Waser and Price will figure as main professors is the first collective effort among Unicamp, UNESP and UFSCar aimed to perpetuate the long tradition of high level Pollination courses initiated at Unicamp and traditionally funded by FAPESP. Moreover, both the invited researchers will speak at the National Botany Congress, and we hope the talks will help to motivate and organize the Brazilian Plant-Pollinator dataset that will be launched at the occasion. We also aim to motivate and to intensify the student's movements between Brazilian and United States´ research institutions, especially the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. Finally, this project is aimed to promote the Brazilian research participation in the international scenario of pollination ecology. (AU)