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

设计微生物群以改善动植物健康的规则是什么？哪些生物使用微生物工程来改善自己的健康？这些生物是否使用特定的机制将有益的微生物组装成它们的微生物群？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对一组已经实践微生物组工程数百万年的生物的研究，这些生物是生长真菌的昆虫，特别是生长真菌的蚂蚁。种植真菌的昆虫都是农民。他们种植真菌食物花园，嵌入有益微生物的复杂群落中，这些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提高了对这种昆虫-微生物相互作用的基因组、微生物、生理和生化方面的了解。因此，目前有兴趣对这些不同的宿主-微生物组组合和微生物组工程的基本规则进行比较合成。拟议的工作将产生两个合成，以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昆虫的微生物、基因组和生化方面的见解，以(I)对形成这种复杂的互惠关系的生态和进化过程产生综合的理解；(Ii)阐明尚未解决的争议；(Iii)评估这些争议背后的替代假说；(Iv)概述检验这些假说的实验工作；从而(V)确定有前途的新的研究方向。第二次合成将总结发生在美国的真菌蚂蚁的生物学，使研究人员能够解决第一次合成中出现的有前途的研究方向。第二个合成还将整合25年来合作研究人员对美国真菌蚂蚁的未发表观察和摄影。因此，第二项合成将使美国研究人员能够利用他们当地的生物多样性，并开发当地的研究系统。该项目还将在美国所有种类的真菌蚂蚁上生成视觉媒体，并向公众传播公共使用的图像。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.