My interests have always been extremely broad, and I have previously studied everything from butterfly behavior to human color perception. If I had to find a common theme to my interests, I'd probably say it's how the traits of living organisms differentially support success in a competitive world. This is much too broad a topic for a Master's Thesis, so to narrow things down I decided to look into a group I hadn't focused on as an undergraduate student: plants.
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Plant Reproduction
Plants, specifically angiosperms (flowering plants) have enormously diverse reproductive strategies and capabilities. One of these is the ability for certain flowering plants to mate with themselves, a process commonly referred to as "selfing". Selfing has a wide range of advantages, chief among them being reproductive assurance: there's no need to worry about finding a mate if you can mate with yourself. However, self-fertilization has some very serious drawbacks as well, as it means all your offspring will be about as highly inbred as a living creature can be. This means many plants opt to avoid selfing, implementing systems to recognize and reject pollen that carries genetic information too similar to their own. This is known as self-incompatibility (SI). The pros and cons to SI and selfing has led to a distribution of these breeding systems that is approximately bimodal (Raduski, Haney & Igic 2013),and why plants opt for one strategy over another is a fascinating topic. |
Weeds
Weeds, for being a category of species most of us see every day, are surprisingly difficult to define. The definition most commonly used is "a plant that is where it is not wanted". While this definition may work in many cases, it is horrible from a biological perspective as it tells us nothing about a species other than it is present somewhere humans wish it weren't. A more biological definition could be a plant whose populations grow entirely or predominantly in regions markedly disturbed by man (Baker, 1965). This definition is far more biologically informative, and helps explain why weeds are such excellent colonizers. As mankind continues to disturb natural areas, weedy plants are being spoiled for choice when it comes to new ecosystems to invade. Now, ability to thrive in disturbed habitats is far from the only trait that predicts colonization success, another such trait was proposed by the same individual who gave us our weed definition. |
Baker's Law
Baker's Law is an ecological theory that states that plants that are self-compatible, or "selfers", are more likely to be successful colonizers than plants which are self-incompatible (Baker, 1959). This intuitively makes sense, if a plant arrives in a novel environment it is much better to have reproductive assurance via self fertilization than needing to rely on other organisms such as pollinators. While self-compatible plants often are successful colonizers, they still can be outcompeted by outcrossing plants, especially if these outcrossers are tolerant to degradation. I believe that the most effective colonizers likely share the traits of self-compatibility and degradation tolerance, which leads to a perfect storm behind many of our most problematic weeds. By using databases of plant breeding data and measurements of degradation tolerance, I hope to connect the tenets of Baker's Law to his own definition for "weed", helping us better understand the often vague biology behind the term "weed".
Baker's Law is an ecological theory that states that plants that are self-compatible, or "selfers", are more likely to be successful colonizers than plants which are self-incompatible (Baker, 1959). This intuitively makes sense, if a plant arrives in a novel environment it is much better to have reproductive assurance via self fertilization than needing to rely on other organisms such as pollinators. While self-compatible plants often are successful colonizers, they still can be outcompeted by outcrossing plants, especially if these outcrossers are tolerant to degradation. I believe that the most effective colonizers likely share the traits of self-compatibility and degradation tolerance, which leads to a perfect storm behind many of our most problematic weeds. By using databases of plant breeding data and measurements of degradation tolerance, I hope to connect the tenets of Baker's Law to his own definition for "weed", helping us better understand the often vague biology behind the term "weed".