View source for Thematic Focus: Collaborative Research - Plants, Herbivores, and Parasitoids: A Model System for the Study of Tri-trophic Associations

= Plants, Herbivores and Parasitoids: A Model System for the Study of Tri-Trophic Associations =

== Project Summary  ==

All the nearly 20,000 plant species in North America are attacked by insect pests, including those in the group Hemiptera (known as the “true bugs”), which are in turn attacked by parasitoid insects in the Hymenoptera (e.g., sawflies, wasps, ants), widely used for biological control of agricultural pests. This project will unify some eight million records in 34 collections to answer how the distributions and phenologies of the plants, pests and parasitoids relate to each other, in a Tri-Trophic Databasing and imaging project – the TTD. 

Data from this approach will benefit basic scientific questions and practical applications in the agricultural sciences, conservation biology, ecosystem studies and climate change and biogeography research. 

Technological tools and methods will be introduced to graduate students, affiliated universities, and grant-sponsored students from other institutions through a short course. A data-mining and species-distribution modeling symposium at the University of California-Riverside will foster interactions between systematics and ecological researchers, and explore the TTD as a platform for instruction and inquiry. 

== Project Leadership  ==

'''Project Lead PI (Lead Principal Investigator):''' Randall T. Schuh, American Museum of Natural History 

'''Co-PIs:''' Richard Rabeler, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Charles Bartlett, University of Delaware; Robert Naczi, New York Botanical Garden; Robert Magill, Missouri Botanical Garden; Christiane Weirauch, University of California, Riverside; Benjamin Normark, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

== Project Websites  ==

http://tcn.amnh.org/

== Project Collaborators  ==

Bishop Museum<br>
California Academy Of Sciences<br>
California Department of Food and Agriculture<br>
Canadian National Collection<br>
Carnegie Museum<br>
Colorado State University<br>
Cornell University<br>
Eastern Michigan University<br>
Illinois Natural History Survey<br>
Iowa State University<br>
Kansas State University<br>
Miami University <br>
Mississippi State University<br>
Missouri Botanical Garden<br>
New York Botanical Garden<br>
North Carolina State University<br>
Oregon State University<br>
Texas A&M University<br>
University of California – Berkeley<br>
University of California - Davis<br>
University of California – Riverside<br>
University of Colorado<br>
University of Delaware<br>
University of Illinois<br>
University of Kansas<br>
University of Kentucky<br>
University of Maine<br>
University of Massachusetts<br>
University of Michigan<br>
University of Minnesota<br>
University of Texas<br>
University of Wisconsin<br>