Peter Zee
(Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of
Mississippi)
Understanding the process of community assembly is important for the study
of community structure and diversity. Priority effects, where the arrival
history of immigrants affects population abundances, can result in
different ecological communities. The strengths and directions of these
priority effects can depend on a variety of factors, including abiotic
conditions and organismal traits. However, how the shared evolutionary
history among species affects the strength and direction of priority
effects is relatively unknown. I will present results from a laboratory
experiment with the bacterial model system Pseudomons fluorescens testing
the relationship of evolutionary history with priority effects during
immigration. I will also discuss some limitations to our study, and
potential future directions for this work.