FSD 2010 - Jones

5th International Symposium-Workshop on Frugivores and Seed Dispersal (1985-2010)

Andy Jones

Research group in Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Conservation Biology
Silwood Park Campus
Imperial College London

f.jones(a)imperial.ac.uk

Activities

My main research interest is the role of dispersal in the origin and maintenance species and genetic diversity. My current project at Imperial College London, Silwood Park is investigating the mechanisms determining global patterns of biodiversity in monocots (lilies, palms, grasses, orchids, etc.). The broad goal of the project is to disentangle the ecological and evolutionary drivers of plant biodiversity at the global scale by examining how plant traits, the environment, and geological history interact to determine current patterns of monocot biogeography and diversification. Our main goals are to 1) Reconstruct the phylogeny of all monocots at the generic level 2) Determine the role of key morphological traits on diversification rates, and 3) Compare the relative role of dispersal and vicariance on diversification rates and reconstruct global dispersal routes through time. I also continue to do research on tropical tree ecology and evolution at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. My long-term goal is to understand how dispersal and other biotic and abiotic factors determine the contemporary and historical distribution and abundance of plants and integrate this into a comprehensive picture of the drivers of plant diversity across local, landscape, and global scales.

Abstract

Confronting ecological observations of seed dispersal with population genetic data: examples from wind and water dispersed Neotropical trees

by Andy Jones¹ and Ivania Ceron²

¹Imperial College; ² Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama

Population genetic theory predicts that populations connected through gene flow will show less genetic differentiation than those with less frequent dispersal. Abiotically dispersed seeds offer a tractable system to examine the relationship between the behavior of the dispersal vector, species traits, and gene flow patterns across large and small spatial scales as dispersal is be expected to be down wind or down stream. I present results from comparative analyses of population genetic structure in wind and water dispersed tropical trees. By examining local genetic structure in three wind dispersed tree species whose seeds are released at different times of the year when wind speeds vary in strength and directionality, I demonstrate directional patterns of genetic structure, but the direction differs from observed wind direction. By comparing population genetic patterns of two dominant water-dispersed mangrove species in the Pacific and Carribean estuaries of Panama and ecological observations of seed dispersal ability in these species, I show how and explain why short term observations differ from observed genetic patterns. We predict that with the advent of increasingly powerful and available genetic techniques and the ability to accurately monitor and predict the movement and behavior of dispersal vectors, the gap between ecological observation and population genetic structure will continue to narrow.

Related references

WJ Kress, DL Erickson, FA Jones, R. Perez, O Sanjur, N Swenson, and E Bermingham 2009. Plant DNA barcodes and a community phylogeny of a tropical forest dynamics plot in Panama. On line early. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

SJ Wright, A Trakhtenbrot, G Boher, M Detto, N Horvitz, GG Katul, HC Muller-Landau, FA Jones, R Nathan 2008. Understanding strategies for seed dispersal by wind under contrasting atmospheric conditions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 19084-19089.

Jones, FA and LS Comita 2008. Neighborhood density and genetic relatedness interact to determine fruit set and abortion rates in a continuous tropical tree population. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, 275: 2759-2767.

Jones, FA and HC Muller-Landau 2008. Measuring long distance seed dispersal in complex natural environments: a comparison and integration of classical and genetic methods. Journal of Ecology, 96, 642-652.

Dick, CW, OJ Hardy, FA Jones, and RJ Petit 2008. Spatial scales of pollen and seed-mediated gene dispersal in tropical forest trees. Tropical Plant Biology, 1, 20-33.

Jones, FA and SP Hubbell 2006. Demographic spatial genetic structure in Jacaranda copaia. Molecular Ecology 15, 3205- 3217.

Jones, FA, JL Hamrick, CJ Peterson, and ER Squiers 2006. Inferring colonization history from analyses of spatial genetic structure within populations of Pinus strobus and Quercus rubra. Molecular Ecology 15, 851-861.

Jones, FA, J Chen, G-J. Weng, and SP Hubbell 2005. A genetic evaluation of seed dispersal in the Neotropical tree, Jacaranda copaia (Bignoniaceae). The American Naturalist 166, 843-855.