Population and community ecology (Po Co Eco) lab
Research group of Saskya van Nouhuys, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc, Bangalore, India
What does the PoCoEco lab do?
We study how interactions among species impact fitness, population dynamics and community composition. We test ecological theory by observing behaviour and natural history, monitoring interactions in the wild, conducting manipulative experiments, and using population genetics tools. We work in natural systems, agricultural systems, disturbed habitats, and at the interfaces among these. There is a focus on insect parasitoids, their herbivorous hosts and the plants they feed on, but we also study other taxa, such as endosymbionts and grassland plant communities.
Highlights from Recent Work
Check some of our recent works
Strong direct and indirect interactions between species impact the performance of individuals. However, their impact is mostly swamped out by spatial and temporal variation of host plant quality
We assessed the potential long term and landscape-level effects of plant-pathogen herbivore-parasitoid interactions on their dynamics. We found that while there are strong and weak interactions between species, most are swamped out by spatial and temporal variation of host plant quality.
Opedal, Ø., Ovaskainen, O., Saastamoinen, M., Laine, A-L., van Nouhuys, S. (2020)
Host plant availability drives the spatio-temporal dynamics of interacting metapopulations across a fragmented landscape
. Ecology, 101(12):e03186. 10.1002/ecy.3186
Higher trophic level species, such as parasitoids, only persist in habitat patch networks with a high host occupancy
Wang, S., Brose, U., van Nouhuys, S., Holt, R. D. and Loreau, M. (2021) Metapopulation capacity determines food chain length in fragmented landscapes . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118, e2102733118.
Long term population genetic structure of interacting species
The genetic signature of introduced parasitoid wasp lineages gives us a window into what has happened in an island archipelago over the 25 years since their accidental introduction, including persistence through population bottlenecks, dispersal and interbreeding, as well as sorting among lineages depending on interaction between a hyperparasitoid and bacterial symbiont.
@duplouy_anne
@abhevo
@Saskyavn
@ParasitoidEcol.
This was one of the most downloaded papers in Molecular Ecology in 2021!
See the
press release,
the news articles in
English
and
Swedish,
and coverage in
The Guardian.
The article:
Duplouy, A., Nair, A., Nyman, T., and van Nouhuys, S. (2021) Long-term spatio-temporal genetic structure of an accidental parasitoid introduction, and local changes in prevalence of its associated Wolbachia symbiont. Molecular Ecology.doi: 10.1111/mec.16065
Research Topics
Cryptic Species groups of parasitoids
Parasitoid wasps are good for examining the ecological and evolutionary patterns that spring...
Population Ecology
We study the spatial population dynamics of closely interacting species in a fragmented landscape by examining their life history...
Behavioral Ecology
Our goal is to link what individuals due to larger scale consequences. There is a long history of conceptually linking foraging...
Community Ecology
Environmental changes such as habitat loss, agriculture and global warming are altering the composition of animal and plant...
Multitrophoic Interactions
Species influence each other directly as well as via intermediaries. For instance the effects...
Ecology, biological Control and evolution in agricultural systems
Jervis, M.A. Kidd, N.A.C., Mills, N.J., van Nouhuys, S.Singh, A., Yazdani,...
Causes of spatial synchrony of butterfly population dynamics
During the last 20 years the population dynamics of the Glanville fritillary butterfly has become increasingly spatially synchronized over the Åland islands. We tested several possible mechanisms for this increased spatial synchrony and found that it is closely associated with increased
synchrony of some aspects of weather, and is not driven by other aspects of weather, or by natural enemies. Kahilainen, A., van Nouhuys, S., Schulz, T. & Saastamoinen, M. (2018) Metapopulation dynamics in a changing climate: Increasing spatial synchrony in weather conditions drives metapopulation synchrony of a butterfly inhabiting a fragmented landscape. PDF
Global Change Biology, doi:10.1111/gcb.14280
Pattern of specificity of a generalist parasitoid wasp
Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 10.1111/eea.12657
