Collaborative Research: From Solitary to Eusocial: Comparative Genomics of Very Early Stages of Insect Social Evolution

合作研究：从孤独到真社会：昆虫社会进化早期阶段的比较基因组学

• 批准号: 1456283
• 负责人: Amy Toth
• 金额: $ 20.98万
• 依托单位: Iowa State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1456283&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Solitary; Eusocial; Comparative

Understanding the evolution of animal social behavior is a key topic in biology. Recently, new gateways for understanding social evolution have opened up due to advances in genomics, allowing unprecedented opportunities to study social behavior on a molecular level. By identifying which genes vary in their expression according to social roles, and how those genes have evolved across a range of social behavior, this project will shed light on the relative importance of particular genes in driving social evolution. Thus, it provides what previous studies lack. Specifically, it can clarify what types of genomic changes are important at each stage of social evolution. This step-wise approach to understanding social evolution provides major advantages over previous work, capitalizing on a unique group of carpenter bees where sociality varies from solitary to simple to complex social species. This study will incorporate students in research positions and integrate data sets into new courses. It will involve outreach activities for long-term pollinator biodiversity monitoring, including field surveys of native bees and citizen-science initiatives. A web-based interface is currently being developed to educate the public on native bees. This website will provide an interactive education tool on native pollinators to highlight their importance for agricultural, garden, and park sustainability.For the first time, genomic tools can be used to test alternative hypotheses about the genomic basis of behavior, utilizing bee species with both simple and complex social behavior. This will be the first study to determine the types of genomic changes associated with the earliest origins of simple sociality and its subsequent elaboration into complex sociality. It utilizes a unique clade of carpenter bees where social behavior ranges enormously, from solitary to complex with many intermediate and very weakly social species. Transcriptomic assays and genome sequence comparisons will be assessed within a phylogenetic context to determine whether transitions from simple forms of cooperation to more complex societies are associated with differential expression of key genes, changes in the structure of those genes, or both. The project involves the following three key components: 1) Development of bee genome databases, where the genomes of six species will be assembled and annotated in order to provide basic information on the gene complement and functional categories of taxonomically restricted genes and to understand gene family expansion/contraction in each species. 2) Comparisons of gene expression, which will use transcriptomic comparisons across species to understand which elements of solitary behavior (foraging, reproduction) are associated with the origin and maintenance of sociality. 3) Adaptive evolution in genes and regulatory elements across the genome, which will involve sequence comparisons of genes and cis-regulatory elements across focal species to determine whether social transitions have involved adaptive changes in DNA sequences in addition to differential gene expression. The proposed project moves beyond all previous genomic studies of ants, honey bees, and social wasps by being able to capture the genetic events associated with changes at the dawn of sociality. Data will be deposited on the NCBI whole genome shotgun (WGS), functional genomic (GEO) and short read archive (SRA), and information will be provided in accordance with NCBI standards. All data will be released to NCBI upon submission for publication.

了解动物社会行为的演变是生物学的关键主题。最近，由于基因组学的进步，理解社会进化的新门户已经开放，从而允许在分子水平上研究社会行为的前所未有的机会。通过识别哪些基因根据社会角色的表达方式以及这些基因在各种社会行为中的发展方式有所不同，该项目将阐明特定基因在推动社会进化中的相对重要性。因此，它提供了以前的研究所缺乏的。 具体而言，它可以阐明在社会进化的每个阶段，哪些类型的基因组变化很重要。理解社会进化的这种逐步方法比以前的工作提供了主要优势，利用了一个独特的木匠蜜蜂，社会性从孤独到简单到复杂的社会物种不等。这项研究将使学生纳入研究职位，并将数据集整合到新课程中。它将涉及长期传粉媒介生物多样性监测的外展活动，包括对本地蜜蜂和公民科学计划的现场调查。目前正在开发基于网络的界面，以对本地蜜蜂进行公众教育。该网站将为本地传粉媒介提供一种交互式教育工具，以突出其对农业，花园和公园可持续性的重要性。首次可以使用基因组工具来测试有关行为基因组基础的替代假设，利用与简单且复杂的社会行为的Bee物种。这将是确定与简单社会最早起源相关的基因组变化类型及其随后阐述复杂社会性相关的研究类型。它利用了独特的木匠蜜蜂进化枝，社会行为的范围很大，从孤独到复杂，与许多中间和非常弱的社会物种。转录组测定和基因组序列比较将在系统发育环境中进行评估，以确定从简单形式的合作形式到更复杂的社会的过渡是否与关键基因的差异表达，这些基因结构的变化或两者相关。该项目涉及以下三个关键组成部分：1）蜜蜂基因组数据库的开发，其中将组装六个物种的基因组并注释，以提供有关分类受限基因的基因补充和功能类别的基本信息，并了解每个物种中的基因家族膨胀/收缩。 2）基因表达的比较，该比较将使用跨物种的转录组比较来了解孤独行为的要素（觅食，繁殖）与社会性的起源和维持有关。 3）基因组的基因和调节元件的适应性演化，这将涉及焦点物种基因和顺式调节元件的序列比较，以确定社会转变是否涉及除差异基因表达外DNA序列的自适应变化。拟议的项目超越了对蚂蚁，蜜蜂和社会黄蜂的所有以前的基因组研究，能够捕获与社会性黎明时变化相关的遗传事件。数据将存放在NCBI全基因组shot弹枪（WGS），功能基因组（GEO）和简读档案（SRA）上，并根据NCBI标准提供信息。所有数据将在提交发表后将其发布给NCBI。