Collaborative Research: Causes and Consequences of Intraspecific Variation in Developmental Plasticity: Growth, Size and Instar Number in Manduca Sexta

了解发育过程如何进化是进化生物学的一个基本挑战。 烟草天蛾Manduca sexta是美国东南部烟草和番茄的主要农业害虫，是研究昆虫生长、发育和变态的重要模式系统。sexta已经维持了40多年。 近年来的研究表明，田间种群中的幼虫期数具有惊人的遗传变异和发育可塑性。六。 拟议的研究将研究导致龄期数量变化的营养和发育机制，并记录龄期数量对毛虫生长和进食，成虫大小和雌性生殖力（卵数）的影响。 该项目将记录自然界中昆虫种群如何保持发育变异，以及发育变异如何影响这种重要农业害虫的摄食，生长和健康。 该项目将包括在北卡罗来纳州和杜克大学培训生物学本科生和研究生，以及培训高中教师。

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.