The researchers propose three projects designed to promote basic plant science and ecological research at Florida State University: (1) to construct and equip one 3100-sq.-ft. Freon-air-conditioned greenhouse, (2) to re-skin and refurbish one older greenhouse, and (3) to purchase six new plant growth chambers. These facilities will be used for a variety of both single-and multiple-user projects. A sample of proposed research that would use these facilities includes studies of the transfer of traits between plant species by means of somatic hybridization (Bates, major user), the evolution of plant competitive performance as a function of environmental conditions (Miller, major user), the role of essential polypeptides in the water-oxidizing complex of photosystem II (Homann, major user), the importance and mechanisms of inter-and intracellular sucrose movement in plant leaves (Outlaw, major user), interactions among natural enemies, physical factors, and plant nutrition in their effects on the population dynamics of planthoppers (Strong, major user), the basis of patterns of population differentiation and divergence at different spatial scale (Winn, major user),and interactions between selection and gene flow in determining patterns of adaptive variation in poeciliid fishes (Travis, minor user).
