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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2011

• Title: Yeast dispersal in pitcher plants
• Primary Author: Primrose Boynton (Harvard)
• Additional Authors: Aaron Ellison (Harvard University); Anne Pringle (University of Wisconsin - Madison)
• Abstract:

  Microbial communities are shaped by a variety of processes, including dispersal among communities. However, ecologists do not understand the role of dispersal in microbial communities as well as they do in plant and animal communities. We tracked the dispersal of yeasts into Sarracenia purpurea pitchers in Harvard Pond, and found that yeasts arrive in pitchers throughout the growing season. When we further explored yeast arrival into pitchers, we found that yeast arrival times appear to be due to dispersal timing and not environmental succession; yeast dispersal into pitchers has local temporal dynamics. We continued investigating S. purpurea yeast dispersal by collecting yeast isolates and entire communities from Harvard Pond pitchers. We will compare community and genotype diversity from these collections with those of collections from throughout the United States and Canada. In this way, we will better understand how dispersal influences yeast diversity across both local and continental spatial scales.

• Research Category: Biodiversity Studies
  Physiological Ecology, Population Dynamics, and Species Interactions