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

在罗伯特·W·萨克博士的指导下，阿拉巴马大学伯明翰分校获得了一项资助，以建立海绵的系统发育树。海绵是一种古老的动物群体，身体结构简单。它们在过滤细菌和其他微小食物颗粒方面非常有效，在世界海洋和淡水栖息地发现了数千种不同的海绵。除了其重要的生态作用外，海绵还可以生产潜在的新药，并拥有异常多样化的微生物生命。尽管海绵广泛存在于水生生境中，但对海绵的研究一直落后于其他更具魅力的海洋动物。对于那些对破译海绵的分类、分类和进化关系感兴趣的人来说，海绵带来了特别的困难，因为海绵的身体是非常可塑性的，每个个体都不同。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和努力养护或经济开发水生生态系统的比较研究。利用8000个海绵标本的分子遗传学数据，该项目将提供一个系统发育背景，将提高对海绵生物学各个方面的理解。将海绵适当地并入生命之树是势在必行的，因为人们普遍认为海绵构成了导致更复杂动物的主要躯干。来自该项目的数据将检验这一假设，并解析生命海绵树中的许多“分支”。该项目将通过建立一个可上网的数据库，协助国际海绵研究界之间的交流与合作。该项目将提供许多外展和教育机会，包括本科生和研究生培训、强化实地课程、专业讲习班和会议专题讨论会。该项目通过帮助跟踪在医学和工业中有用的关键基因(和化学标记)的起源和分布，并通过建立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.