XVI International Botanical Congess

Studies of Eucalyptus and Populus in the wild and synthetic populations in common gardens show that the distributions of diverse arthropod and fungal taxa, species richness, and abundance have strong genetic and ontogenetic components. Using NMDS (non-metric multidimensional scaling) we found that genetic variation among cross types and/or genetic variation in phase shifting from juvenile to mature foliage types affected most arthropods and fungi. Genetic variation in plants affects community structure directly through changing host quality or indirectly through keystone species. The underlying genetic variation in the plant population has important community-level consequences that rival the importance of competition, predation, and edaphic factors in structuring communities.