AToL: Collaborative Proposal: Assembling the Protostome Tree of Life

哈佛大学的Gonzalo Giribet博士及其合作者获得了一项资助，用于组装原生动物生命树的基本脊椎，其中包括所有三倍体动物(与更简单的水母、海葵和海绵相对)，但与脊椎动物有直接关系的动物除外。在170万种已命名的生物物种中，原口动物占100多万种，包括软体动物、昆虫、蚯蚓、扁虫、蛔虫等熟悉的动物，以及许多其他具有重要医学和经济价值的动物。然而，这些群体之间的关系仍然存在争议，因此，在没有很大程度的不确定性的情况下，目前无法提出动物生命树的支柱。这项提议将尽可能广泛地收集和传播有关选定的代表性动物的信息，以解决5.4亿多年来它们的起源和进化问题。为了做到这一点，我们将利用细胞谱系研究和广泛的基因组信息，将现存和灭绝动物的解剖学数据与发育数据结合起来。这些数据将为大量原生生物物种收集，这些物种的研究将达到前所未有的水平，在非模式生物中尝试。这项研究的结果将有助于改写人们对动物进化的认识。授予的补助金将有助于对不同学术水平的学生进行培训，强调在科学领域代表性不足的群体。结果将通过与世界上五个最著名的自然历史博物馆合作向社会传播，这些博物馆包括美国的哈佛自然历史博物馆和美国自然历史博物馆，以及澳大利亚和丹麦最重要的博物馆。ATOL原始人团队也打算在非专业科学杂志上发表一篇文章，面向广大的非专业读者。

A grant has been awarded to Dr. Gonzalo Giribet of Harvard University and collaborators to assemble the basic backbone of the protostome tree of life, which includes all triploblastic animals (animals with three body layers, as opposed to the simpler jellyfish, anemones, and sponges) except those directly related to vertebrates. Protostomes constitute more than one million of the 1.7 million named species of living organisms, including familiar animals such as mollusks, insects, earthworms, flatworms, roundworms, and many others of medical and economic importance. However, relationships among these groups are still contentious, so the backbone of the animal tree of life cannot currently be proposed without a large degree of uncertainty. This proposal will integrate and disseminate the broadest possible collection of information on selected representative animals to address questions of their origin and evolution over more than 540 million years. In order to do this we will integrate anatomical data on extant and extinct fauna with developmental data using cell-lineage studies and broad-based genomic information. Those data will be collected for a large pool of protostome species which will be studied at a level never before attempted in non-model organisms. The outcome of this research will contribute to rewriting what it is known about animal evolution. The awarded grant will contribute to the training of students at different academic levels, emphasizing underrepresented groups in science. Results will be disseminated to society through partnership with five of the most prominent natural history museums in the world, including the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History in the USA, and the most important museums in Australia and Denmark. It is also the intention of the AToL protostome team to publish an article in non-specialist scientific magazines for a broad lay audience.