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

台湾地白蚁（Coptotermes formosanus）是一种社会性昆虫，也是一种重要的建筑害虫。每年，与这种白蚁造成的损害和控制它的努力相关的成本都在数十亿美元。为了消化木材，白蚁如台湾地下白蚁使用共生原生生物物种的群落。原生生物高度特化于白蚁肠道环境，无法在宿主之外生存。在白蚁中，白蚁王（雄性）和蚁后（雌性）都将这些原生生物传给它们的后代。每种白蚁都有一个独特的原生生物群落。然而，几乎没有人知道这些社区是如何维持的。更重要的是，人们对不同原生生物物种对白蚁宿主适合度的影响知之甚少。台湾地白蚁与亚洲地白蚁交配而产生的杂交白蚁的发现，提供了一个独特的研究机会。通过创造具有不同肠道原生生物的杂交白蚁，这项研究将大大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适应性。由于杂交白蚁是自然发生的，这项研究还将有助于制定明智的害虫控制策略。本研究将训练三所大学的研究生，并对台湾地白蚁、亚洲地白蚁及其杂交种的原生生物后肠群落进行表征和比较。高通量测序将用于在多个时间点鉴定每个交配组合的所有原生生物物种。这将揭示原生生物之间共存和/或竞争排斥的模式。此外，该研究将剖析父母性别对共生体群落组成的任何潜在影响。这项研究还将调查白蚁生物学的哪些方面对观察到的杂交种的活力贡献最大。为了做到这一点，这项工作将描绘嵌合殖民地的共生体群落。嵌合菌落是指亲本是杂交种，但共生体群落来自单一宿主物种的菌落。这些嵌合体菌落将通过在失去原生生物后，但在菌落成熟到足以拒绝入侵者之前，在杂交和同种菌落之间交换初级繁殖体来建立。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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.