Fall Seedling Competition Project

I am continuing my project with the Bruns lab from last Spring. Dr. Bruns and I have updated a few things, and I am looking forward to collecting data soon! The largest change is that I’ve decreased the maximum density from 2000 seeds to 100 seeds. I’m only using 3 density treatments of 10, 50, and 100. We chose seeds from a maternal plant that is part of a family that has a high susceptibility to Microbotryum from days 6-19.

I’m interested in seeing how seedlings that grow up competing with each other respond to the addition of disease. Will disease be more or less common when seedlings are competing? Will it be unchanged?

Until I can offer more information, enjoy my updates and photos from my work so far.

[UPDATE! We found that competition increases the appeared prevalence of disease! Check out my recent post for more.]

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Seedlings at day 38 (top) and day 7 (bottom).

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From left to right and top to bottom: a healthy plant tagged; using a pencil to open a diseased flower; data sheet during a collection day; a diseased flower; a healthy flower; close up of tagged rescue plants; a diseased flower; a healthy flower.

Fall Seedling Competition Project

Plant-Animal Interactions

Microbial Communities in the Baltimore Inner Harbor