Our research centres around how direct and indirect interactions can affect community structure in both natural and agricultural communities. Our work proceeds along three major "themes": indirect interactions mediated by induced plant defence, chemically-mediated multitrophic interactions and interspecific interactions in natural and agroecosystems.
Multi-trophic chemical interactionsIn interactions developed with plants, chemical traits play a prominent role, since plants present an extremely diverse set of primary and secondary metabolites with dynamic ecological functions that vary in time, space and with the community context. Plant chemical traits connect different trophic levels when they mediate the interaction between plants, herbivores and their natural enemies. In particular, plant volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are easily dispersed in the environment have the potential to be perceived by other organisms and constitute a large part of the chemical background in which multitrophic interactions occur.
In our lab, we are interested in how plant chemical traits, in particular VOCs, mediate multitrophic interactions in natural and cultivated systems. Through the study of such volatile compounds, we test hypotheses about the mechanisms involved in direct plant-plant interaction and indirect interactions between herbivores, herbivores and pollinators, and herbivores and their natural enemies. Interactions in diversified agroecosystemsDiversified agroecosystems are social-ecological unit of crop producitons with management to achieve patterns and process favorable to biodiversity conservation and food production. They are complex communities that hold enormous amounts of ecological interactions that support and provide important model systems to research ecological questions. Around the world, agroecosystems have proved to be excellent models for the study of Ecology, in particular for direct and indirect interactions, multitrophic interactions and chemicaly mediated plant defense mechanisms. In our lab, we are interessed in studying the ecological interactions in agroecosystems and how they can be managed to enhance agroecosystem services like biological control, pollination, nutrient cycling, and food production.
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Indirect interactionsWhen plants are attacked by herbivores they often respond by activating inducible defences. Many of these responses are highly specific, and therefore plants can tailor their response depending on the herbivore that attacks them. Once a plant activates these defences, its phenotype changes, and this can affect all the other interactions the plant has with herbivores or mutualists.
In our research, we aim to understand how these induced defences can affect plant interactions with other organisms. At the moment, our projects address plant-mediated interactions between herbivores and floral visitors as well as plant-mediated interactions between different herbivore species. |