International Research Fellowship Program: Evolutionary History of the Higher Attine Symbiosis

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

0701233SolomonThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twenty-four-month research fellowship by Dr. Scott Solomon to work with Dr. Mauricio Bacci, Jr. at the Universidad Esadual Paulisa in Brazil, and with Dr. Ted Schultz at the Smithsonian Institution.The higher attine symbiosis is a system consisting of four interacting participants: attine ants, a fungal cultivar, a fungal parasite, and a bacterium. Within this symbiosis, the ant genus Trachymyrmex occupies a critical position as the closest living relatives to the well-known leafcutter ants, providing an opportunity to (1) understand the evolutionary origins of the leafcutter ants, and (2) elucidate the co-evolutionary dynamics among the four members of the attine symbiosis at the species level. The current study seeks to accomplish these goals by reconstructing the evolutionary history of each participant in the Trachmyrmex ant-fungus-bacteria symbiosis using molecular genetic techniques. Research on the evolutionary relationships among the other members of the higher attine ants is currently underway, and the results of the current study will be integrated with these ongoing analyses to provide a comprehensive evolutionary history of all higher attines. The 42 current living species within the genus Trachymyrmex are distributed from the United States through central Argentina, with the greatest species diversity occurring in tropical regions of Central and South America. The foreign host institution, the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) in Rio Claro, Brazil serves as a base for collecting Trachymyrmex colonies throughout Brazil as well as other key locations in South America. Living Trachymyrmex colonies are maintained at the host institution, where the PI is being instructed in methods for isolating the symbiotic fungi and bacteria. Subsequent molecular analyses will take place at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, which serves as the re-entry host.