Dissertation Research: Phylogeny and Evolution of Subsocial Behavior in the New World Treehopper Subfamily Membracinae (Homoptera: Membracidae)

[104893]新大陆跳树亚科的danforth和Lin昆虫（5个部落，38属，约447种）表现出一系列的社会行为，从(1)单独的个体，到(2)若虫或成虫聚集，再到(3)高度发达的母性关怀，通过基质振动与亲代/后代交流。膜膜树跳虫的行为变异为研究昆虫亚社会行为的进化提供了一个极好的机会。然而，我们目前对这一群体的亚社会行为进化的了解是有限的，因为它们的系统发育关系还不完整。我们不知道母性照顾进化了多少次，不知道母性照顾是否会导致独居行为，也不知道涉及沟通和信号的母性照顾的复杂形式究竟是如何进化的。为了更全面地了解膜膜跳树虫社会进化的历史模式，研究生林忠平将在康奈尔大学Bryan Danforth博士的指导下，利用形态学和分子（来自细胞核和线粒体基因的DNA序列）数据对这一群体进行系统发育研究。新的藏品将来自南美，以增加现有的样品和博物馆馆藏。系统发育分析的结果将为重建膜膜跳树动物行为特征变化的可能方向提供一个历史框架。这些信息将用于确定亚社会行为的起源，并在进化过程中追踪亚社会行为的发展。这项研究的结果不仅有助于我们理解这一迷人昆虫群体的亚社会行为，而且有助于了解一般的社会性进化。

0104893Danforth and Lin Insects in the New World treehopper subfamily Membracinae (5 tribes, 38 genera and about 447 species) show a range of social behavior from (1) solitary individuals, to (2) nymphal or adult aggregations, to (3) highly developed maternal care with parent/offspring communication via substrate-borne vibrations. The behavioral variation in membracine treehoppers provides an excellent opportunity to study the evolution of subsocial behavior in insects. However, our current knowledge on the evolution of subsocial behavior in this group is limited because of an incomplete picture of their phylogenetic relationships. We don't know how many times maternal care has evolved, whether maternal care gives rise to solitary behavior, or exactly how complex forms of maternal care involving communication and signalling have evolved. In order to more fully understand the historical patterns of social evolution in membracine treehoppers, a phylogenetic study of this group will be conducted using both morphological and molecular (DNA sequences from nuclear and mitochondrial genes) data by graduate student Chung-Ping Lin under the guidance of Dr. Bryan Danforth at Cornell University. New collections will be made from South America to augment existing samples and museum holdings. The results of phylogenetic analyses will provide a historical framework to reconstruct the likely direction of behavioral character changes among membracine treehoppers. This information will then be used to identify the origins of subsocial behavior and to trace the development of subsocial behavior over evolutionary time. The result of this study will contribute not only to our understanding of subsocial behavior in this fascinating group of insects but to knowledge of evolution of sociality in general.