found that the expression levels of these genes in individual plants could determine how well the whole group fared in several different measures of plant health and defense. The groups contained mixtures of plants with different gene alterations. These plants were then grown either alone, or in groups of five plants, which reflects the normal size of groups of wild tobacco growing in its natural environment. The third gene, called TPS10, which comes from the crop plant maize, gives plants the ability to release a fragrance that attracts natural predators of their herbivores.Įxcept for these specific alterations, the plants were otherwise genetically identical. Two of the genes, called LOX2 and LOX3, are required to make most of the chemicals that tobacco plants use to defend themselves against herbivores. This was achieved by altering the expression of three genes in the plants in specific combinations. carried out a 2-year field study using wild tobacco plants that had been genetically altered to employ different defensive strategies. For example, plants can use sharp spines or harmful chemicals to deter herbivores, or attract predators that will attack the herbivores. One way that plants affect their ecosystems involves how they defend themselves against the herbivores that try to eat them. However, previous studies that investigated plant genetic diversity in ecosystems used plants that varied in multiple, usually unknown, genetic traits, which made it difficult to identify specific genetic traits in plants that can influence the whole ecosystem. This ‘genetic diversity’ can affect the populations of other organisms in their ecosystem, for example, by altering which species are present, and the number of individuals. Individuals within the same plant species often differ in multiple genes. This means that the different traits and characteristics of the plant species in an ecosystem can have a large impact on the animals and other organisms that live there. Plants are at the base of many food webs. Furthermore, our results suggest that some ecosystem-level services afforded by genetically diverse plant populations could be recaptured in intensive monocultures engineered to be functionally diverse. We conclude that the frequency of defense traits in a population can determine the outcomes of these traits for individuals. Using lines of the wild tobacco Nicotiana attenuata genetically altered in specific well-characterized defense traits and planted into experimental populations in their native habitat, we investigated community-level effects of trait diversity in populations of otherwise isogenic plants. However, studies of intraspecific genetic diversity have used genotypes varying in several complex traits, obscuring the specific phenotypic variation responsible for community-level effects. In fact, genetic diversity within species can have similarly large effects. This may arise from diverse functional traits among species. Plants are at the trophic base of terrestrial ecosystems, and the diversity of plant species in an ecosystem is a principle determinant of community structure. Other non-significant factors remained in models because they were the least insignificant factor (if only one factor remained), or because they are dependent on other factors which are significant or required. Significant p-values and factors are given in bold, while p-values and factors marked in grey and in bold are marginal, but are required in the minimal model because their removal resulted in poorer (higher) AIC values. It should be kept in mind that plants in the season one analysis were at an earlier stage of growth and flowering, for example, had about 10% as many flowers as plants in the season 2 analysis for an analysis of flowering at similar stages, see Figure 7. Figure 8-source data 1: The same statistical approach described in Appendix 3 for Figure 5 was used for plant size and reproduction data from May 17th in season 1, and June 6th in season two (the most complete measurements, closest to the date of herbivore damage screens, from each season).
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