Collaborative Research: AToL: PorToL - The Porifera Tree of Life Project

在 Robert W. Thacker 博士的指导下，阿拉巴马大学伯明翰分校获得了一笔资助，用于构建海绵的系统发育树。海绵是一种古老的动物群，身体结构简单。它们能够非常有效地过滤它们所生活的水中的细菌和其他小食物颗粒，在世界海洋和淡水栖息地中发现了数千种不同的海绵物种。除了其重要的生态作用之外，海绵还可以产生潜在的新药物，并拥有极其多样化的微生物生命。尽管海绵广泛存在于水生栖息地，但对海绵的研究仍然落后于其他更具魅力的海洋动物。海绵给那些有兴趣破译其分类、分类和进化关系的人带来了特殊的困难，因为海绵体具有很强的可塑性，个体之间存在差异。这些困难阻碍了海绵生物学和生物多样性基础研究的进展，包括旨在了解动物进化的比较研究以及保护或经济开发水生生态系统的努力。该项目将利用来自 8,000 个海绵标本的分子遗传数据，提供系统发育背景，以提高对海绵生物学各个方面的理解。将海绵正确纳入生命之树势在必行，因为人们普遍认为海绵构成了导致更复杂动物的主要树干。该项目的数据将检验这一假设并解决海绵生命树内的许多“分支”。该项目将通过创建一个可通过互联网访问的数据库来协助国际海绵研究界的沟通和协作。该项目将提供大量的外展和教育机会，包括本科生和研究生培训、强化实地课程、专业研讨会和会议研讨会。该项目通过帮助追踪对医学和工业有用的关键基因（和化学标记）的起源和分布，以及建立用于研究早期动物进化的新模型系统，使整个社会受益。

A grant has been awarded to the University of Alabama at Birmingham under the direction of Dr. Robert W. Thacker for assembling the phylogenetic tree of sponges. Sponges are an ancient animal group with simple body construction. They are extremely efficient at filtering bacteria and other small food particles from the water in which they live, with thousands of different sponge species found in the world's oceans and freshwater habitats. Along with their important ecological roles, sponges can yield potential new medicines and host an extraordinary diversity of microbial life. Despite their widespread presence in aquatic habitats, the study of sponges has lagged behind that of other more charismatic marine fauna. Sponges pose special difficulties for those interested in deciphering their taxonomy, classification, and evolutionary relationships because sponge bodies are quite plastic, varying from one individual to the next. These difficulties hamper progress in basic studies of sponge biology and biodiversity, including comparative studies aimed at understanding the evolution of animals and efforts to conserve or economically exploit aquatic ecosystems. Using molecular genetic data from 8,000 sponge specimens, this project will provide a phylogenetic context that will improve the understanding of all aspects of sponge biology. Proper Incorporation of sponges in the Tree of Life is imperative, because there is wide consensus that sponges comprise the primary trunk leading to more complex animals. Data from this project will test this hypothesis and resolve many "branches" within the sponge tree of life. This project will assist communication and collaboration within the international sponge research community by creating an internet-accessible database. This project will provide numerous outreach and educational opportunities, including undergraduate and graduate student training, intensive field courses, professional workshops, and conference symposia. This project benefits society as a whole by helping to track the origin and distribution of crucial genes (and chemical markers) that are useful in medicine and industry and by establishing new model systems for the study of early animal evolution.