Richard Lindroth
Vilas Distinguished Achievement and Sorenson Professor Emeritus
Interests: Chemical ecology, climate change, trophic interactions, “genes to ecosystems” ecology, bioenergy
(608) 263-6277
Education
- PhD Biology (Ecology Program), University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. 1984.
- B.S. Fisheries and Wildlife Biology, Iowa State University, Ames. 1977.
Affiliations
- Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, UW-Madison
- Department of Integrative Biology, UW-Madison
- Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Center, UW-Madison
- Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW-Madison
Research Interests
Ecology. Our research interests are broad, spanning the range from biochemical to ecosystem ecology, with a strong evolutionary perspective. A major emphasis is chemical mechanisms that mediate ecological interactions, with particular interest in plant-herbivore interactions. One focal area emphasizes the roles of genetics and resource availability in modulating plant defense characteristics, costs/benefits of defense, and consequences of variation in defense for multi-trophic interactions and ecosystem function. A second focal area investigates the effects of global environmental change (elevated temperature, enriched carbon dioxide, ozone) on plant-insect interactions, arthropod biodiversity, litter decomposition and nutrient cycling. A third focal area addresses the consequences of genetic manipulation of poplar as a biofuel for insect pest resistance.
Publications
Online Profiles
Recent Publications
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PloS one. pmid:40674360, pmc:PMC12270107, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0327554
1. Community genetics research aims to identify genetic and phenotypic mechanisms that shape communities as extended phenotypes. To date, most progress has been made identifying variation in herbivore communities associated with intraspecific variation in plants, with little focus on identifying specific genes or traits responsible for that variation. Here, we identify how extended phenotype variation of a foundation tree species, Populus tremuloides, arises from trait variation among…
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Ecology and evolution. pmid:39161623, pmc:PMC11331496, doi:10.1002/ece3.70046
Earth is now experiencing declines in insect abundance and diversity unparalleled in human history. The drivers underlying those declines are many, complex, and incompletely known. Here, using a natural experiment, we report the first test of the hypothesis that forest defoliation by an invasive outbreak insect compromises the fitness of a native insect via damage-induced increases in toxicity of the forest canopy. We demonstrate that defoliation by the invasive spongy moth (Lymantria dispar)…
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Ecology and evolution. pmid:37780087, pmc:PMC10534199, doi:10.1002/ece3.10541
Intraspecific genetic variation in foundation species such as aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) shapes their impact on forest structure and function. Identifying genes underlying ecologically important traits is key to understanding that impact. Previous studies, using single-locus genome-wide association (GWA) analyses to identify candidate genes, have identified fewer genes than anticipated for highly heritable quantitative traits. Mounting evidence suggests that polygenic control of…
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Journal of economic entomology. pmid:37441732, doi:10.1093/jee/toad129
Leucoptera sinuella (Reutti) (Lepidoptera: Lyonetiidae) is a leaf miner specialist on Salicaceae recently introduced to Chile and Argentina, where it is causing economic damage to poplar plantations. We report a field survey in a poplar nursery naturally infested showing that regardless of the poplar hybrid taxon, high variability in resistance was observed among clones within families for oviposition and leaf-mining damage. A group of susceptible and resistant hybrid poplar clones was then…
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Journal of chemical ecology. pmid:37183205, doi:10.1007/s10886-023-01430-5
Condensed tannins (CTs) are abundant, ecologically-relevant secondary metabolites in many plants, which respond to variables associated with anthropogenic environmental change. While many studies have reported how genetic and environmental factors affect CT concentrations, few have explored how they influence CT molecular structure. Here, using trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) as a model organism, we report how foliar CT concentrations, polymer sizes, representation of procyanidins and…
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Journal of chemical ecology. pmid:36765024, doi:10.1007/s10886-023-01409-2
Trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) is arguably the most important deciduous tree species in the Intermountain West of North America. There, as elsewhere in its range, aspen exhibits remarkable genetic variation in observable traits such as morphology and phenology. In contrast to Great Lakes populations, however, relatively little is known about phytochemical variation in western aspen. This survey of phytochemistry in western aspen was undertaken to assess how chemical expression varies…
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Annals of botany. pmid:35641114, pmc:PMC9904343, doi:10.1093/aob/mcac071
CONCLUSION: Although ploidy level can strongly influence the ecology of tree species, those effects may be relatively small in contrast to the effects of genotypic variation in highly diverse species.
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Global change biology. pmid:35596651, doi:10.1111/gcb.16275
Climate change is threatening the persistence of many tree species via independent and interactive effects on abiotic and biotic conditions. In addition, changes in temperature, precipitation, and insect attacks can alter the traits of these trees, disrupting communities and ecosystems. For foundation species such as Populus, phytochemical traits are key mechanisms linking trees with their environment and are likely jointly determined by interactive effects of genetic divergence and variable…
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Oecologia. pmid:35449362, doi:10.1007/s00442-022-05158-z
Patterns of trait expression within some plant species have recently been shown to align with the leaf economics spectrum paradigm. Resistance to herbivores is also expected to covary with leaf economics traits. We selected 36 mature Populus tremuloides genotypes in a common garden to assess whether aspen leaf economics patterns follow those observed among species globally. We also evaluated leaf economics strategies in the context of insect resistance by conducting bioassays to determine the…
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Journal of chemical ecology. pmid:35416535, doi:10.1007/s10886-022-01355-5
Polyploidy, the expression of more than two sets of chromosomes, is common in plants, and is thought to influence plant trait expression and drive plant species evolution. The degree to which polyploidy influences interactions among physiological processes such as growth and defense in natural populations through its effect on phenotypic variability is poorly understood. We link broad plant genotypic features (including polyploidy) to phenotypic expression of growth and chemical defense in…
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The New phytologist. pmid:34614214, doi:10.1111/nph.17773
Plant resource allocation patterns often reveal tradeoffs that favor growth (G) over defense (D), or vice versa. Ecologists most often explain G-D tradeoffs through principles of economic optimality, in which negative trait correlations are attributed to the reconciliation of fitness costs. Recently, researchers in molecular biology have developed ‘big data’ resources including multi-omic (e.g. transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic) studies that describe the cellular processes controlling…
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. pmid:34507992, pmc:PMC8449370, doi:10.1073/pnas.2103162118
All organisms experience fundamental conflicts between divergent metabolic processes. In plants, a pivotal conflict occurs between allocation to growth, which accelerates resource acquisition, and to defense, which protects existing tissue against herbivory. Trade-offs between growth and defense traits are not universally observed, and a central prediction of plant evolutionary ecology is that context-dependence of these trade-offs contributes to the maintenance of intraspecific variation in…
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Ecology. pmid:34236702, doi:10.1002/ecy.3461
Efforts to maintain the function of critical ecosystems under climate change often begin with foundation species. In the southwestern United States, cottonwood trees support diverse communities in riparian ecosystems that are threatened by rising temperatures. Genetic variation within cottonwoods shapes communities and ecosystems, but these effects may be modified by phenotypic plasticity, where genotype traits change in response to environmental conditions. Here, we investigated plasticity in…
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Journal of chemical ecology. pmid:33683546, doi:10.1007/s10886-021-01259-w
Climate warming can influence interactions between plants and associated organisms by altering levels of plant secondary metabolites. In contrast to studies of elevated temperature on aboveground phytochemistry, the consequences of warming on root chemistry have received little attention. Herein, we investigated the effects of elevated temperature, defoliation, and genotype on root biomass and phenolic compounds in trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides). We grew saplings of three aspen genotypes…
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The New phytologist. pmid:33378548, doi:10.1111/nph.17166
The ability to tolerate neighboring plants (i.e. degree of competitive response) is a key determinant of plant success in high-competition environments. Plant genotypes adjust their functional trait expression under high levels of competition, which may help explain intra-specific variation in competitive response. However, the relationships between traits and competitive response are not well understood, especially in trees. In this study, we investigated among-genotype associations between…
Selected Honors and Awards
- 2020 Hilldale Award in Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin
- 2019 Dalton Lecturer, George Fox University, Newberg, OR.
- 2018 Scientist in Residence, Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, Canada.
- 2017 Elected Fellow, Entomological Society of America.
- 2016 Vilas Distinguished Achievement and Sorenson Professor, University of Wisconsin.
- 2016 Elected Fellow, Ecological Society of America.
- 2011-12 Fellow, Academic Leadership Program, Committee on Institutional Cooperation.
- 2011-12 Vilas Associate Award, University of Wisconsin.
- 2010 Kellett Mid-Career Faculty Research Award, University of Wisconsin.
- 2009 Silverstein-Simeone Award in Chemical Ecology. Internat. Soc. of Chemical Ecology.
- 2008 Aspen-FACE (Free Air CO2 Enrichment) “Pioneer” Award.
- 2007 Chairperson, Gordon Research Conference on Plant-Herbivore Interactions.
- 2006 Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- 2005 “Distinguished Ecologist” Lecture Series, Mich. Tech. Univ. & USDA Forest Service.
- 2004 Vice chairperson, Gordon Research Conference on Plant-Herbivore Interactions.
- 1997 Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, New Zealand.
- 1997 AgResearch Research Fellowship, Grasslands Research Centre, New Zealand.
- 1996 H.I. Romnes Award, University of Wisconsin.
- 1994 Glenn Pound Award for Outstanding Research, University of Wisconsin.
- 1985 NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Environmental Biology.
Professional Societies
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Scientific Affiliation
- Ecological Society of America
- Entomological Society of America
- International Society of Chemical Ecology