Collaborative Research: Spatially and Temporally Explicit Breeding Structure Analyses for a Tropical Dry-Forest Tree Species, Enterolobium cyclocarpum

0211430

Smouse

Changes to natural landscapes can have profound effects on population densities and spatial distributions of organisms, greatly modifying natural breeding patterns. Two novel genetic analyses will examine spatial and temporal variation in the breeding patterns of natural and human-modified populations of the tropical dry-forest tree, Enterolobium cyclocarpum, located in Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica. The availability of seed collections dating from 1995 provides a unique temporal dimension to these analyses. Studies of the pollination ecology of this species will supplement the genetic analyses allowing more informed interpretations of the genetic data.

This research has several broader impacts. First, it will determine if human-induced habitat modifications significantly modify breeding patterns of tropical trees to such an extent that natural levels of genetic diversity can't be maintained. Second, temporal analyses will demonstrate whether studies of a few reproductive events adequately describe breeding patterns of a long-lived tree. These comprehensive studies should also assist the development of effective landscape management plans that consider the spatial extent of natural breeding populations. Finally, comparisons of the two genetic analyses should determine whether the less resource-demanding approach dependably estimates breeding parameters. If so, this could provide a major breakthrough for landscape-level studies of pollen movement patterns in a wide variety of plant species.