Abstract DBI-9804265 Fritzi Grevstad This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biosciences Related to the Environment for 1998. This fellowship provides an opportunity for the Fellow to gain additional scientific training beyond the doctoral degree and to pursue innovative and imaginative research into the fundamental mechanisms underlying the interactions between organisms and their environment at the molecular, cellular, organismal, population, community and/or ecosystem level in any area of biology supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences of the National Science Foundation. Each fellowship supports a research and training plan to be carried out in a sponsoring laboratory. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled interactions among herbivores introduced for the biological control of weeds. The research is concerned with how interactions among herbivores influence their spatial distributions, abundance, and impacts on plant populations. Interactions representing 3 feeding guilds are being studied among four insect species which were recently introduced into North America for the biocontrol of purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria). At the scales of both the individual plant and a patch of plants, residency by one species is being studied on the effects of the rate of colonization, survivorship, and impact of an additional species. Of particular interest is whether prior occupancy confers a competitive advantage, a phenomenon that has been little studied in the field. Records of past and current weed control projects maintained by the Oregon Department of Agriculture are also being analyzed. The data set contains yearly updates on the status of 59 biocontrol agents introduced against 29 target weeds across 36 Oregon counties. The research has important implications for biocontrol introductions, biological invasions, and herbivore interactions in general.
