Eco-evolutionary dynamics of mutualistic interactions

• Grant number: 12/05935-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: February 01, 2013
• End date: November 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Theoretical Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Roberto Guimarães Junior
• Grantee: Flávia Maria Darcie Marquitti
• Supervisor: Simon Asher Levin
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Princeton University, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 11/11346-0 - Interaction parasites and coevolution of mutualisms, BP.DR

Abstract

Reproduction, defense, and dispersal of many animals and plants are carried out by mutualistic partners. Mutualisms are not isolated, pair-wise interactions, but they form mutualistic interaction networks potentially involving many species. Although it is common to consider all species in these networks true mutualistic partners, we know that some species exploit their partners without providing any benefit. Thus, exploitive species can interfere, through their interactions, in the evolutionary dynamics of the mutualistic populations. This project aims to contribute to the understanding about how exploitative species affect the evolutionary dynamics of species in the network through changing its ecological dynamics. I will use the adaptive dynamics approach to mathematically model the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of a pair of mutualistic partners and it will allow the evolution of exploitation by one of the partners. The evolutionary dynamics will use phenotype selection, associated to the selection gradient of the mutant fitness, that can increase/decrease the phenotypic match between mutualistic partners. I will look for analytical and numeral solutions to the model using computational routines. I think this work will potentially contribute to development of a new theory for coevolution in species-rich assemblages of interacting species. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

DATTILO, WESLEY; MARQUITTI, FLAVIA M. D.; GUIMARAES, PAULO R.; IZZO, THIAGO J.. The structure of ant-plant ecological networks: Is abundance enough?. ECOLOGY, v. 95, n. 2, p. 475-485, FEB 2014. (09/54422-8, 12/05935-5)

DARCIE MARQUITTI, FLAVIA MARIA; GUIMARAES, JR., PAULO ROBERTO; PIRES, MATHIAS MISTRETTA; BITTENCOURT, LUIZ FERNANDO. MODULAR: software for the autonomous computation of modularity in large network sets. ECOGRAPHY, v. 37, n. 3, p. 221-224, MAR 2014. (09/54422-8, 11/11346-0, 12/05935-5)