U.S.-Mexico Collaborative Research: Host Use and Diversification of Drosophila Group Species

小行星9724790 这个美国-墨西哥奖将支持阿肯色州大学的William Etges博士与墨西哥自治大学（伊斯塔帕拉帕校区）的Miguel Armella Villalpando博士进行研究合作。 研究人员计划研究昆虫物种之间的宿主利用模式，以分析资源关联以及祖先和衍生群体之间宿主植物转换的程度。 特别是，他们计划研究D。repleta组物种，果蝇属内嗜仙人掌的大类群，被认为起源于新世界沙漠，包括墨西哥中部仙人掌丰富的干旱土地。 这项合作将使我们能够在墨西哥中部的沙漠中定位和识别D.repleta的仙人掌宿主，并将增加我们对这一特定群体物种进化的理解，尽管在过去50年中进行了集中的研究工作，但仍然知之甚少。 利用这些物种之间的系统发育关系，目前使用分子方法得出，研究人员建议使用宿主使用模式来深入了解生物多样性的过程，这些过程产生了这个大的物种群。 ***

9724790 Etges This U.S.-Mexico award will support Dr. William Etges of the University of Arkansas in a research collaboration with Dr. Miguel Armella Villalpando of the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (Iztapalapa campus) in Mexico. The researchers plan to study patterns of host use among insect species to analyze resource associations and degree of host plant switching among ancestral and derived groups. In particular, they plan to study the host relationships of the D. repleta group species, a cactophilic large group within the genus Drosophila thought to have originated in New World deserts, including the cactus-rich arid lands of central Mexico. This collaboration will allow the location and identification of cactus hosts of D.repleta in the deserts of central Mexico and will increase our understanding of the evolution of this particular group species, which, despite concentrated research efforts over the last 50 years, remains poorly understood. Using phylogenetic relationships among these species, currently derived using molecular approaches, the researchers propose to use patterns of host use to gain insight into the processes of biological diversification that have given rise to this large species group. ***