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Research Interests
Professor Bishop's research interests are in molecular evolution and plant population biology. Recent work at Mount St. Helens demonstrates the importance of insect herbivores in primary succession. We use experimental, observational, and modeling to document and spatially structured trophic interactions and their effect on lupine colonization. A major thrust has been to disentangle the underlying top-down and bottom-up causes of inverse density dependent herbivory. We are especially interested in the role of nutrient stoichiometry may. Projects in molecular evolution combine comparative sequence analyses with enzyme structural information to gain insight into plant-pathogen arms races at the molecular level. We focus on several cell-wall degrading enzymes deployed by invading pathogens (e.g. polyglacturonase) or as defenses by plants (chitinase, b-1,3-endoglucanase), along with corresponding inhibitors. The molecular evolution of these kinds of plant defenses is still understudied.
Representative Publications
Bishop, J.G. 2005. Directed mutagenesis confirms the functional importance of positively selected sites in polygalacturonase inhibitor protein (PGIP). Molecular Biology and Evolution 22(7): 1531-1534.
Bishop, J.G., W.F. Fagan, J.D. Schade and C.M. Crisafulli. 2005. Spatially structured insect herbivory and its effects on primary succession. In Dale, V.H., F. Swanson, and C.M. Crisafulli, eds. Mount St. Helens ecological research: Ecological recovery of Mount St. Helens after the 1980 eruption. Springer-Verlag.
Fagan, W.F., M. Lewis, M.G. Neubert, C. Aumann, J.L. Apple, and Bishop, J.G. 2005. When can herbivores reverse the spread of an invading plant? A test case from Mount St. Helens. American Naturalist 166: 669-685.
Fagan, W. F. and J. G. Bishop. 2000. Trophic interactions during primary succession: Herbivores slow the reinvasion of lupines on Mount St. Helens. American Naturalist 155: 238-251.
Bishop, J. G., A. M. Dean, and T. Mitchell-Olds. 2000. Rapid evolution in plant chitinases: Molecular targets of selection in plant-pathogen coevolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 97: 5322-5327