Trade-offs Between Leaf Productivity and Defense Across Scales and Systems: Evidence of an Underlying General Pattern?

Abstract:
All plants face physiological trade-offs between growth, defense, and reproduction, and my research seeks to understand the coordinated evolution of the traits that govern these three core functions. My research addresses a variety of questions across multiple scales, from macroevolution to population differentiation to within-individual variation through time, as well as in multiple systems, from crops to wild herbs and woody plants. I am especially interested in the physiological and genetic mechanisms underlying plant response to diverse environmental pressures, including abiotic factors like climate and soil fertility, and biotic factors like herbivory and disease. Today I will be discussing a variety of studies related to evaluating growth-defense trade-offs in plants across scales, and current and ongoing work on this topic in our lab group.

Biography:
Dr. Mason is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Central Florida. He received a B.S. in Zoology and Botany from the University of Florida (2009), and a PhD in Plant Biology from the University of Georgia (2015) under Dr. Lisa Donovan, studying adaptation to stress in wild sunflowers. Dr. Mason subsequently served as the Katharine H. Putnam Fellow in Plant Science at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, studying the evolution of leaf defenses in temperate trees and shrubs.