2018 Wiley Fundamental Ecology Award winner

Congratulations to Nicole Bezemer from the University of Western Australia (UWA) who is the winner of the 2018 Wiley Fundamental Ecology Award for her project ‘Sex on the rocks: genetic consequences of bird pollination and population insularity in Eucalyptus caesia’.

You can read Nicole’s project summary below.

The South West Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR) is globally exceptional in terms of the number of plant species that appear to be predominantly pollinated by nectar-feeding birds. Many bird-pollinated plants in the SWAFR are also rare endemics that occur in naturally fragmented populations, and may have increased risk of extinction due to loss of pollinator species or population decline due to diminished reproductive output.

Using the bird-pollinated Eucalyptus caesia as a model species, I will explore in detail the conservation genetic consequences of bird pollination, in the context of naturally fragmented populations. Studies that apply genetic techniques such as paternity analysis to bird-pollinated plants are in their infancy, but suggest significant evolutionary and conservation consequences of bird pollination. Through field experimentation and genotyping with 15 microsatellite loci, my objective is to address three outstanding questions in plant pollination ecology and evolutionary biology:

1. What is the relative contribution of nectar-feeding birds and insects to pollen dispersal and mating in plants adapted for bird pollination? Following on from my Honours research (Bezemer et al. 2016), pollinator exclusion experiments in two additional study populations will be used to quantify and compare correlation of paternity and pollen dispersal distances between insect-only and bird- and insect-pollinated progeny groups.

2. How do catastrophic disturbances such as wildfire, combined with extremely rare recruitment from seed, affect population genetic diversity in granite-outcrop endemics? Following a wildfire in April 2015, a rare opportunity arose to document seedling emergence and survival, and pre- and post-fire population genetics of the Boyagin stand of E. caesia. This component of my research has recently been published; the major findings include limited seed dispersal but some genetic mixing via pollen dispersal within the stand, and a lack of evidence for inbreeding depression based on comparative growth rates and survivorship of seedlings resulting from self- versus cross-pollination (Bezemer 2018).

3. How does genetic and geographic isolation over extended time periods influence population spatial genetic structure? This will be a one-of-a-kind study involving exhaustive mapping and microsatellite genotyping of all known wild stands of E. caesia, and will focus on four key research questions. Firstly, how does population size and insularity effect fine-scale population spatial genetic structure? Secondly, does pollen movement occur between stands or is mating largely restricted within stands? Thirdly, is there any evidence of seed migration between isolated outcrop populations? Finally, should previously recognized subspecies in E. caesia be re-instated?

Overall, my research is an in-depth exploration of the evolution and conservation consequences of apparent adaption for bird pollination, and of population genetic structure of fragmented populations on a regional scale, designed to inform genetic management of small, naturally isolated populations.