Mechanisms of Disease Response in Termites

9632134特兰涅洛白蚁是许多生态系统中最丰富和最重要的昆虫之一，因为它们能够消化纤维素，并循环利用落叶、腐殖质和枯木中的营养。由于它们的食材习性，白蚁具有巨大的经济影响，仅在美国，它们每年就造成超过6亿美元的结构损失。尽管白蚁具有重大的生态和经济意义，但人们对白蚁的生物学知之甚少。白蚁的行为和生态有两个特征，这两个特征似乎在它们的进化史上起着关键作用，因此对了解它们的生物学至关重要。首先，它们是社会性的，形成了潜在的数百万个体的群体。其次，它们在土壤和腐烂的木头上筑巢。它们的巢环境中含有丰富的微生物，如真菌和细菌，其中一些可能是疾病和死亡的媒介。事实上，白蚁似乎对许多病原体高度敏感。我们认为，白蚁生物学的这两个因素--社会生活和疾病易感性--可能是有联系的。对疾病生态学的研究，以及对白蚁在个体和群体水平上抵抗感染的生理和生化机制的进化的研究，将为白蚁的社会进化提供重要的见解。作为这项研究的结果，我们将更多地了解白蚁病原体的性质，它们在群体中的传播，以及白蚁应对疾病的方式。这反过来将使我们能够确定白蚁的自然脆弱性，这些脆弱性可能被利用来控制白蚁，从而限制它们的破坏性潜力。此外，对白蚁病原体和抗病性的研究可能导致开发新的、对环境安全的白蚁控制方法，以及可能具有药用价值的天然抗生素的分离和化学特性。

9632134 Traniello Termites are among the most abundant and important insects in many ecosystems, owing to their ability to digest cellulose and recycle the nutrients that are found in leaf litter, humus and dead wood. And because of their wood-eating habits, termites have great economic impact as they are responsible for over $600 million dollars structural damage annually in the united States alone. In spite of their great ecological and economic significance, the biology of termites is poorly understood. There are two features of termite behavior and ecology that appear to have been pivotal in their evolutionary history and thus critical to understanding their biology. First, they are social, forming colonies of potentially millions of individuals. Second, they nest in soil and decaying wood. Their nest environments are rich in microbes such as fungi and bacteria, some of which may be agents of disease and mortality. Indeed, termites appear to be highly susceptible to many pathogens. We believe that these two elements of termite biology - social life and disease susceptibility - may be linked. Research into the ecology of disease, along with research on the evolution of physiological and biochemical mechanisms that allow termites to resist infection at both the individual and colony level, will provide important insights into termite social evolution. As a consequence of this research we will understand more about the nature of termite pathogens, their transmission within a colony and the ways termites cope with disease. This will in turn allow us to identify the natural vulnerabilities of termites that might be exploited to control them and thus limit their destructive potential. Moreover, studying termite pathogens and disease resistance may result in the development of novel, environmentally safe methods of termite control, as well as the isolation and chemical characterization of natural antibiotics that could have medicinal value.