OPUS: CRS: Synthesizing microbial ecology of fungus-growing ants

设计微生物组以改善动植物健康的规则是什么？哪些生物利用微生物组工程来改善自身健康？这些生物是否使用特定的机制将有益微生物聚集到它们的微生物群中？解决这些问题将阐明微生物组工程的一般原理，并对医学和农业产生影响。这项拟议的工作将综合研究一组已经实践了数百万年微生物组工程的生物，即真菌生长的昆虫，特别是真菌生长的蚂蚁。种植真菌的昆虫是农民。他们在有益微生物的复杂群落中培育真菌食物园，这些有益微生物具有营养和健康功能，但也可能包括微生物病原体。过去三十年的研究极大地增加了对这种昆虫-微生物相互作用的基因组学、微生物学、生理学和生物化学的理解。因此，现在存在着对这些不同宿主-微生物组关联的比较合成和微生物组工程的潜在规则的兴趣。提出的工作将产生两种合成来阐明微生物组组装和微生物组与宿主相互作用的一般原理。第一个综合将总结最近对真菌生长昆虫的微生物，基因组和生化见解，以：(i)产生对形成这种复杂相互关系的生态和进化过程的综合理解；（ii）阐明未解决的争议；（iii）评估这些争议背后的其他假设；（iv）概述验证这些假设的实验工作；从而(v)确定有前途的新研究方向。第二次合成将总结在美国发生的真菌生长蚂蚁的生物学，使研究人员能够解决从第一次合成中出现的有前途的研究方向。第二次合成还将整合25年来未发表的观察和摄影，这些观察和摄影是由合作研究人员对美国的真菌蚂蚁进行的。因此，第二种综合将使美国科学家能够利用他们当地的生物多样性并发展当地的研究系统。该项目还将为美国所有种类的真菌蚂蚁制作视觉媒体，并向公众传播常用图像。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。

What are the rules to engineer microbiomes to improve health of animals and plants? What organisms use microbiome engineering to improve their own health? Do these organisms use specific mechanisms to assemble beneficial microbes into their microbiomes? Addressing these questions will elucidate general principles of microbiome engineering, with implications for medicine and agriculture. The proposed work will synthesize research on one group of organisms that have practiced microbiome engineering for millions of years, the fungus-growing insects, specifically fungus-growing ants. Fungus-growing insects are farmers. They cultivate gardens of fungal food embedded in complex communities of beneficial microbes that serve nutritive and health functions, but can also include microbial pathogens. Research during the last three decades vastly increased genomic, microbial, physiological, and biochemical understanding of such insect-microbe interactions. There exists therefore now an interest in a comparative synthesis of these diverse host-microbiome associations and the underlying rules of microbiome engineering.The proposed work will generate two syntheses to elucidate general principles of microbiome assembly and microbiome interactions with the host. The first synthesis will summarize recent microbial, genomic, and biochemical insights on fungus-growing insects to (i) generate an integrative understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes shaping such complex mutualisms; (ii) elucidate unresolved controversies; (iii) evaluate alternate hypotheses underlying these controversies; (iv) outline experimental work to test these hypotheses; and thus (v) identify promising novel research directions. The second synthesis will summarize the biology of fungus-growing ants occurring in the US to enable researchers to address the promising research directions that emerge from the first synthesis. The second synthesis will also integrate 25 years of unpublished observations and photography by the collaborating investigators on the fungus-growing ants of the USA. The second synthesis will therefore enable US researchers to take advantage of their local biodiversity and develop local study systems. The project will also generate visual media on all species of fungus-growing ants in the US and disseminate commons-use images to the public.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.