Dissertation Research: Fitness Consequences of Resistance to Parasitism in a Drosophila-Parasitoid System

寄生虫对动植物种群造成巨大破坏。许多生物已经进化出对寄生虫的部分抵抗力(免疫力)。然而，人们对维持这种免疫力的生理成本和进化动态知之甚少。这个项目将探索果蝇在保持对寄生蜂(Asobara Tabida)的部分免疫力方面所经历的成本。这项研究将衡量在寄生虫中存活的果蝇和未被寄生的果蝇的健康成本。这是一个研究免疫力的理想系统，因为关于果蝇遗传和发育的先验信息非常丰富。此外，黄蜂寄生虫经常用于有害昆虫的生物防治计划；了解这些防御黄蜂寄生虫的本质可能使农业科学家能够“设计”更好地逃避宿主免疫系统的寄生虫。

Huey9801688Parasites cause tremendous damage to plant and animal populations. Many organisms have evolved partial resistance (immunity) to parasites. However, little is known of the physiological costs and evolutionary dynamics of maintaining such immunity. This project will explore the costs that the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) experiences in maintaining partial immunity against the parasitic wasp (Asobara tabida). The research will measure fitness costs of flies that survive the parasite versus those that were unparasitized.This is an ideal system for studying immunity because of the wealth of prior information on the genetics and development of fruit flies. Moreover, wasp parasites are often used in biocontrol programs for noxious insects; and understanding the nature of those defenses against wasp parasites may enable agricultural scientists to "engineer" parasites that better evade host immune systems.