Natural and Experimental Coevolution between the Invasive Garden Ant and its Parasites CLUSTER: "Experimental evolution and natural variation of Bacillus-invertebrate interactions"

本项目旨在研究入侵园蚁（Lasius疏忽蚁）及其真菌和细菌宿主协同进化的时空格局。当这个蚁种被引入到新的地方时，它经历了适应寄生虫的损失，因为它从自然寄生虫中解脱出来（“寄生虫释放”），并遇到了新的寄生虫，这些寄生虫原属于被引入的范围，但尚未适应新的宿主物种（“被破坏的共同进化”）。因此，通过构建宿主和寄生虫的新组合，每次引入都为新的共同进化军备竞赛设定了起点。我们将通过分离田间真菌和细菌寄生虫，研究入侵园蚁在物种群落中不同年龄、大小、遗传多样性和优势的种群军备竞赛的结果。为了确定不同种群中“共同进化的紧密性”，我们将在标准化实验室条件下对从相同和不同野外种群中取样的宿主和寄生虫进行检测，并测试寄生虫致病性和宿主个体和集体（社会）免疫防御。我们将测试跨人群（空间方面）和同一人群的两个时间点在两年的距离（时间方面）。我们还将进行一项实验进化研究，根据宿主的遗传多样性及其生态优势，确定真菌（绿僵菌）和细菌（苏云金杆菌）寄生虫对入侵园蚁的适应速度。我们将分析寄生虫致病性的变化和相应的基因变化随时间的变化。

Aim of the proposed project is to study spatial and temporal patterns of coevolution in theinvasive garden ant, Lasius neglectus, and its fungal and bacterial hosts. When this antspecies is introduced into new sites, it experiences a loss of adapted parasites, as it is freedfrom its natural parasites (“parasite release”) and encounters new parasites native to theintroduced range that are not yet adapted to the new host species (“disrupted coevolution”).Each introduction thus sets the starting point of a new coevolutionary arms race by buildingnew combinations of hosts and parasites. We will study the outcome of this arms race inpopulations differing in their age, size, genetic diversity and dominance of the invasivegarden ant in the species community, by isolation of field fungal and bacterial parasites. Todetermine the “tightness of coevolution” in the different populations, we will then performinfections of the hosts and parasites sampled from the same and different field populationsunder standardised laboratory conditions, and test for parasite pathogenicity and hostindividual and collective (social) immune defences. We will test both across populations(spatial aspects) and the same populations for two time points in a distance of two years(temporal aspect). We will also perform an experimental evolution study, in which wedetermine the speed of adaptation of fungal (Metarhizium anisopliae) and bacterial (Bacillusthuringiensis) parasites to the invasive garden ant depending on the host genetic diversityand its ecological dominance. We will analyse changes in parasite pathogenicity and thecorresponding genetic changes over time.