Aerial reproductive structures of vascular plants as a microhabitat for myxomycetes.

This study explored the occurrence and distribution of myxomycete species on the aerial reproductive structures of vascular plants. Eight species of vascular plants representing five families were sampled. The doubled rope climbing method was used to collect bark and cones from the canopy of Pinus echinata. Bark and aerial seed pods were gathered from Cercis canadensis, follicles and stems from Asclepias syriaca, dried composite inflorescences and stems from Echinacea angustifolia, E. pallida, and E. paradoxa var. paradoxa, and capsules and stems from Yucca glauca and Y. smalliana. Reproductive structures and bark/stems for 202 host plants were separated and cultured in 541 moist chambers, resulting in 118 collections yielding 32 myxomycete species representing 11 genera, seven families and five orders. There was no significant difference in pH values of the reproductive structures and bark/stems of the host plants, however legume pods of C. canadensis (6.9 +/- 1.3) had higher pH than the bark (6.0 +/- 1.1) and had a different composition of myxomycete species. Myxomycete orders have optimal pH ranges. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling, multiresponse permutation procedure and indicator species analysis showed a significant difference in species richness of reproductive structures and bark/stems. The bark of trees had greater mean species richness of myxomycetes than the reproductive structures, but the reproductive structures of herbaceous plants had greater mean species richness of myxomycetes than the stems. A new term, herbicolous myxomycetes, is proposed for a group of myxomycetes frequently associated with herbaceous, perennial, grassland plants. An undescribed species of Arcyria occurred only on cones of P. echinata.

Unifying life-history analyses for inference of fitness and population growth.

The lifetime fitnesses of individuals comprising a population determine its numerical dynamics, and genetic variation in fitness results in evolutionary change. This dual importance of individual fitness is well understood, but empirical fitness records generally violate the assumptions of standard statistical approaches. This problem has undermined comprehensive study of fitness and impeded empirical synthesis of the numerical and genetic dynamics of populations. Recently developed aster models remedy this problem by explicitly modeling the dependence of later-expressed components of fitness (e.g., fecundity) on those expressed earlier (e.g., survival to reproduce). Moreover, aster models employ different sampling distributions for different components of fitness (e.g., binomial for survival over a given interval and Poisson for fecundity). Analysis is done by maximum likelihood, and the resulting distributions for lifetime fitness closely approximate observed data. We illustrate the breadth of aster models' utility with three examples demonstrating estimation of the finite rate of increase, comparison of mean fitness among genotypic groups, and analysis of phenotypic selection. Aster models offer a unified approach to addressing the breadth of questions in evolution and ecology for which life-history data are gathered.