Macroevolutionary Trends of Defenses and Counterdefenses in an Ancient Plant-insect Interaction

古代植物-昆虫相互作用中防御和反防御的宏观进化趋势

• 批准号: 9815648
• 负责人: Judith Becerra
• 金额: $ 7.5万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-02-15 至 2000-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9815648&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Macroevolutionary; Trends; Defenses; Counterdefenses; Ancient

9815648BecerraDetermining the factors that direct the co-evolution of plants and the insects that feed on the plants have been a central question in the field of plant-insect interactions. This project will provide a quantitative assessment of the role of plant structure and chemical defenses, and biogeographical distributions in directing the evolution of host shifts in plants. More specifically, the PIs will develop DNA sequences to reconstruct the evolutionary trees of the ancient and speciose Blepharida - Bursera system. Bursera (New World tropical shrubs and trees related to frankincense and myrrh) are one of the most diverse and abundant groups of plants in tropical dry forests, which are a predominant vegetation type in Mexico, while Blepharida includes about 45 species in the New World. The Blepharida - Bursera system is considered on the best example of an old interaction between a herbivore and a plant. Thus, it is an ideal system for testing macroevolutionary questions. The information generated from this project will provide a precise evaluation of the importance of plant defensive chemicals and defensive morphology in the marcoevolution of host exploitation and will help in understanding the evolution of insect-plant interactions. In addition, it will clarify the Systematics and evolution of an important group of Mexican plants and insects, while addressing issues that are very important to the areas of plant-insect interactions, macroevolution and general evolution.

确定引导植物和以植物为食的昆虫共同进化的因素一直是植物-昆虫相互作用领域的中心问题。该项目将对植物结构和化学防御的作用以及生物地理分布在指导植物寄主转移的进化中的作用进行定量评估。更具体地说，PI将开发DNA序列来重建古老而特殊的Blepharida-Bursera系统的进化树。Bursera(与乳香和没药有关的新大陆热带灌木和乔木)是热带干燥森林中最多样化和最丰富的植物群之一，是墨西哥的主要植被类型，而Blepharida在新大陆包括约45种植物。Blepharida-Bursera系统被认为是食草动物和植物之间古老相互作用的最好例子。因此，它是测试宏观进化问题的理想系统。该项目产生的信息将提供对植物防御化学物质和防御形态在宿主利用的微进化中的重要性的准确评估，并将有助于理解昆虫-植物相互作用的进化。此外，它还将阐明一组重要的墨西哥植物和昆虫的系统学和进化，同时解决对植物-昆虫相互作用、宏观进化和一般进化领域非常重要的问题。