Collaborative Research: Causes and consequences of intraspecific variation in developmental plasticity: growth, size and instar number in Manduca sexta

理解发育过程是如何进化的是进化生物学的一个基本挑战。烟草角虫（The Tobacco Hornworm, Manduca sexta）是美国东南部烟草和番茄的主要农业害虫，是了解昆虫生长、发育和变态的重要模式系统，其实验室菌落已经保存了40多年。近年来的研究揭示了田间种群中令人惊讶的遗传变异和发育可塑性。本研究将研究引起虫卵数变化的营养和发育机制，并记录虫卵数对毛虫生长和摄食、成虫体型和雌虫繁殖力（卵数）的影响。该项目将记录自然界中昆虫种群的发育变异是如何维持的，以及发育变异如何影响这种重要的农业害虫的摄食、生长和适应性。该项目将包括对北卡罗来纳大学和杜克大学生物学专业本科生和研究生的培训，以及对高中教师的培训。

Understanding how developmental processes evolve is a fundamental challenge for evolutionary biology. The Tobacco Hornworm, Manduca sexta, a major agricultural pest of tobacco and tomato in the Southeast US, is an important model system for understanding the growth, development and metamorphosis of insects, and laboratory colonies of M. sexta have been maintained for over 40 years. Recent studies have revealed surprising genetic variation and developmental plasticity in the number of larval stages (instars) in field populations of M. sexta. The proposed research will study the nutritional and developmental mechanisms that cause variation in instar number, and document the consequences of instar number for caterpillar growth and feeding, adult size, and female fecundity (number of eggs). This project will document how variation in development is maintained within insect populations in nature, and how developmental variation influences feeding, growth and fitness of this important agricultural pest. This project will include the training of undergraduate and graduate students in Biology at the University of North Carolina and Duke University as well training high school teachers.