Abstract
The proposed research combines two research themes that have been studied by our group for a few decades. The first is the area of metapopulation dynamics of plant-inhabiting predators and prey. Predators aggregate on plants where prey densities are high and predator densities low, whereas prey avoid aggregations of predators. We study the consequences of such density-dependent behavioural responses both by behavioural observations on various predator-prey systems as well as by long-term experiments on metapopulations of predatory mites and phytophagous mites (1-3). The second area is that of the evolution of interactions between plants and predators of their herbivores (4-6). When plants are attacked by herbivores, they start producing volatile signals that are attractive to the predators of the herbivores. The plants benefit from producing the signal because the predators will kill the herbivores, and the predators benefit because the signals facilitates finding food. The evolution of this signaling system is still heavily debated (4, 7, 8), and is open to cheating strategies (i.e. plants that gain protection against future herbivore attacks by producing volatiles when they are not attacked by herbivores). The proposed spatial analysis of the evolution of such signaling will yield more insight into the evolution of such signaling systems.
Netherlands