Collaborative Research SG: Symbiont interactions and heterosis in a hybrid social insect

台湾地下白蚁（Coptotermes formosanus）是一种群居昆虫和主要的结构害虫。每年，这种白蚁造成的损失和控制它的努力都要花费数十亿美元。为了消化木材，白蚁，如台湾地下白蚁，使用一个共生原生物种的群落。原生生物对白蚁的肠道环境高度专业化，不能在宿主之外生存。在白蚁中，蚁王（雄性父母）和蚁后（雌性父母）都将这些原生生物传给后代。每种白蚁都有一个独特的原生物种群落。然而，实际上人们对这些社区是如何维持的一无所知。更重要的是，人们对不同原生物种对寄主白蚁适应性的影响知之甚少。台湾地下白蚁与亚洲地下白蚁（Coptotermes gestroi）交配而成的杂交白蚁的发现，为不同种类的原生生物提供了独特的研究机会。通过创造具有不同肠道原生生物的杂交白蚁，本研究将极大地提高我们对白蚁肠道中原生生物群落如何维持的理解。此外，这项研究创造的杂交白蚁将允许详细研究肠道原生生物如何影响白蚁的适应性。由于杂交白蚁自然发生，这项研究也将有助于制定明智的害虫控制策略。作为项目的一部分，三所大学的研究生将接受培训。本研究将对台湾地下白蚁、亚洲地下白蚁及其杂交种的原生后肠群落进行特征分析和比较。高通量测序将用于鉴定每个交配组合在多个时间点上的所有原生物种。这将揭示原生生物之间共存和/或竞争排斥的模式。此外，本研究还将剖析亲本性别对共生群落组成的潜在影响。研究还将探讨白蚁生物学的哪些方面对观察到的杂交活力贡献最大。为了做到这一点，这项工作将描绘嵌合菌落的共生群落。嵌合菌落是指亲本是杂交的菌落，而共生菌落则来自单一的寄主物种。这些嵌合群体将在失去原生生物后，但在群体成熟到足以拒绝入侵者之前，通过在杂交群体和同种群体之间交换初级生殖体来建立。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Formosan subterranean termite (Coptotermes formosanus) is a social insect and a major structural pest. Annually, the costs associated with the damage caused by this termite and efforts to control it are in the billions. In order to digest wood, termites such as the Formosan subterranean termite use a community of symbiotic protist species. The protists are highly specialized to the termite gut environment and cannot survive outside of their hosts. In termites, both the king (male parent) and the queen (female parent) pass these protists to their young. Each termite species harbors a unique community of protist species. However, virtually nothing is known about how these communities are maintained. More importantly, little is known about different protist species' impacts on the fitness of their termite hosts. The discovery of a hybrid termite resulting from the mating between the Formosan subterranean termite and the Asian subterranean termite (Coptotermes gestroi), which harbor different species of protists, provides a unique research opportunity. By creating hybrid termites, with different gut protists, this research will greatly improve our understanding of how the communities of protists in termite guts are maintained. Furthermore, the hybrid termites created by this research will allow for detailed studies of how gut protists influence termite fitness. Since hybrid termites occur naturally, this research will also help generate informed pest control strategies. Graduate students at three universities will be trained as part of the project.This study will characterize and compare the protist hindgut communities of the Formosan subterranean termite, the Asian subterranean termite and their hybrids. High throughput sequencing will be used to identify all protist species from each mating combination at multiple time points. This will reveal patterns of coexistence and/or competitive exclusion among the protists. Additionally, the research will dissect any potential effect of parental gender on symbiont community composition. The study will also investigate which aspects of termite biology contribute most to the observed vigor of the hybrids. To do so, the work will profile the symbiont communities of chimeric colonies. Chimeric colonies are those in which the parents are hybrids, but symbiont communities derive from a single host species. These chimeric colonies will be established by swapping primary reproductives between hybrid and conspecific colonies after they have lost their protists but before the colonies mature sufficiently to reject intruders.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.