MSB: Experimental Coevolutionary Genetics of the Attine Ant-Microbe Symbiosis

MSB：蚂蚁-微生物共生的实验共同进化遗传学

• 批准号: 0919519
• 负责人: Ulrich Mueller
• 金额: $ 49.85万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-15 至 2014-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0919519&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MSB; Experimental; Coevolutionary; Genetics; Attine

Certain ants cultivate fungi as their major food source. The ants collect and transport vegetable substrate to a "garden," usually a sheltered chamber excavated in the ground, then plant fungus on this new substrate. Gardens of fungus-growing ants are foci of interactions within a community of ants, the cultivated fungus, and a great diversity of additional microbes. Specifically, pathogens attacking the ants or the fungal gardens can cause the death of the nest community, but a variety of auxiliary microbes contribute disease-suppressing properties that control such pathogens. Disease resistance to pathogens is shaped by the genetic identity of both the ant and the fungus and the interaction of these two dominant community members with the auxiliary microbes. This research will elucidate how these nest community members interact and co-evolve in response to pathogen presence. To understand disease dynamics, the research will (a) characterize the inheritance of assemblages of auxiliary microbes from maternal to offspring ant nest; (b) determine the importance of co-inheritance of ant-fungus-microbe combinations to disease resistance of the community; and (c) evaluate the relative contribution to disease-resistance by ant, fungus, and auxiliary microbes. The research integrates a variety of experimental approaches within an ecological-genetics and quantitative-genetics framework, contributing towards a unification of ecology and evolutionary biology.Inheritance of auxiliary microbes between generations occurs in diverse hosts, including humans, but the importance of communities of auxiliary microbes in their contribution to the health of a host is incompletely understood. This research develops novel experimental approaches to elucidate the role of auxiliary microbe communities in disease suppression. Because microbial communities also confer disease resistance for humans (e.g., the microbiome of human skin or gut) and for crops (e.g., the microbiome of roots), this research on fungus-growing ants will contribute to the understanding of general microbial principles with applications to human and agricultural disease management. Fungus-growing ants and their microbes will also be used to promote education of students and the public on the importance of ecological, evolutionary, and all biological processes. A postdoctoral researcher and multiple undergraduates will be trained and mentored in this research project.

某些蚂蚁把真菌作为它们的主要食物来源。蚂蚁收集并运输蔬菜基质到一个“花园”，通常是一个在地下挖出来的有遮蔽的房间，然后在这个新的基质上种植真菌。种植真菌的蚂蚁花园是蚂蚁、栽培真菌和大量其他微生物之间相互作用的焦点。具体来说，攻击蚂蚁或真菌花园的病原体会导致蚁巢群落的死亡，但各种辅助微生物有助于控制这些病原体的疾病抑制特性。对病原体的抗病能力是由蚂蚁和真菌的遗传特性以及这两种优势群落成员与辅助微生物的相互作用形成的。这项研究将阐明这些巢社区成员如何相互作用和共同进化以应对病原体的存在。为了了解疾病动力学，研究将(a)表征辅助微生物组合从母体到后代蚁巢的遗传特征；(b)确定抗真菌-微生物组合的共遗传对社区抗病性的重要性；(c)评估蚂蚁、真菌和辅助微生物对抗病的相对贡献。该研究在生态遗传学和数量遗传学框架内整合了各种实验方法，有助于生态学和进化生物学的统一。辅助微生物的代际遗传发生在包括人类在内的不同宿主中，但辅助微生物群落对宿主健康贡献的重要性尚未完全了解。本研究开发了新的实验方法来阐明辅助微生物群落在疾病抑制中的作用。由于微生物群落也赋予人类（例如，人类皮肤或肠道的微生物组）和作物（例如，根部的微生物组）抗病能力，因此对真菌生长蚂蚁的研究将有助于理解一般微生物原理，并将其应用于人类和农业疾病管理。真菌生长的蚂蚁和它们的微生物也将被用来促进学生和公众对生态、进化和所有生物过程的重要性的教育。本研究项目将培养和指导一名博士后研究员和多名本科生。