ATOL: Phylum Nematoda: Integrating Multidisciplinary Expertise and Infrastructure for Resolving Relationships in a Major Branch of the Tree of Life

新罕布什尔州大学的William K托马斯博士及其同事James Baldwin博士和Paul De Ley博士（加州大学滨江分校）、大卫Fitch博士（纽约大学）和Steven Nadler博士（加州大学戴维斯分校）获得了一笔赠款，用于研究线虫的进化历史和生物多样性。 线虫门（线虫）被认为是地球上最丰富和遗传多样性的动物门之一。 此外，它们在动物进化和理解有争议的无脊椎动物进化关系中发挥着关键作用。对这一庞大门的系统发育研究一直受到阻碍，因为很难与如此多样的分类群一起工作，其中大多数是微观的，只有相对较少的专家知道。线虫遗传学也受到不同学科分类专家的分散以及对植物、脊椎动物和无脊椎动物的经济或医学重要寄生虫的偏见的阻碍。 因此，了解它们的进化历史是NSF组装生命之树计划的关键组成部分。 本项目将为线虫开发一个更高层次的树，以提供一个解释其多样性的框架。 这项工作将使用超过1000个物种的分子（18S核糖体基因）和形态学数据。 在一个平行的努力中，他们将使用这项工作的结果作为基础，选择50种线虫物种构建cDNA文库，以提供对该门遗传多样性的更深入了解，并可能解决长期存在的关于线虫树最深分支的问题，甚至是其在动物王国中的系统发育位置。

A grant has been awarded to Dr. William K Thomas at the University of New Hampshire and his colleagues Dr. James Baldwin and Dr. Paul De Ley (University of California, Riverside), Dr. David Fitch (New York University) and Dr. Steven Nadler (University of California, Davis) to examine the evolutionary history and biodiversity of nematodes. The phylum Nematoda (roundworms) is argued to be one of the most abundant and genetically diverse animal phyla on earth. In addition, they play a key position in animal evolution and understanding of controversial invertebrate evolutionary relationships. Phylogenetic studies of this enormous phylum have been impeded by the difficulty of working with such diverse taxa, most of which are microscopic and known by relatively few experts. Nematode phylogenetics has also been impeded by the fragmentation of taxonomic specialists among different disciplines and by bias toward economically or medically important parasites of plants, vertebrates and invertebrates. Accordingly, understanding their evolutionary history is a critical component in the NSF's Assembling the Tree of Life program. This project will develop a higher-level tree for the nematodes to provide a framework for interpreting their diversity. The work will use both molecular (18S ribosomal genes) and morphological data for over 1000 species. In a parallel effort, they will use the results of this work as a basis for selecting 50 nematode species for construction of cDNA libraries to provide greater insight into genetic diversity in the phylum and to possibly resolve the longstanding questions about of the deepest branches of the nematode tree or even its phylogenetic position in the animal kingdom.