RESEARCH
The aquatic food web in the leaves of the pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea
The northern pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea, has been used as a model system for decades to address fundamental questions in community ecology. Its leaves trap rainwater, creating a microscopic aquatic habitat that has dynamics of larger aquatic food webs, but on small spatial and short time scales. Insects, especially ants, fall into the trapped water. Bacteria and yeast colonize the system, decompose the insects, and liberate nutrients for the plant. A variety of protozoans and a rotifer species also colonize this community and consume the bacteria. The highest trophic level is filled by the larvae of the pitcher plant mosquito, Wyeomia smithii, which feed on the protozoans and rotifers.
Cross Section of the pitcher shaped leaf of S. purpurea, with microscopic community present
For my dissertation, I am using this system to answer fundamental questions about community assembly, including questions that impact our understanding of invasion biology, system resistance to invasion and the impacts of invaders. My dissertation also uses metagenomics as a tool to identify bacterial species in a series of experiments designed to test questions about food web dynamics of the pitcher plant system, and how this system responds to different types of impacts, including invasion by novel species. In addition, my research tests whether commonly assumed tradeoffs between competitive ability, resistance to predators and environmental stress are ubiquitous, or, whether some species defy these tradeoffs, which may make them likely super invaders.
SIDE PROJECTS ALONG THE WAY:
The change in rocky intertidal community composition due to the introduction of the invasive oyster Crassostrea gigas
