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

OPUS：CRS：综合真菌生长蚂蚁的微生物生态学

• 批准号: 1911443
• 负责人: Ulrich Mueller
• 金额: $ 19.8万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-07-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1911443&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: OPUS; CRS; Synthesizing; microbial; ecology

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 The second synthesis will also integrate 25 years of unpublished observations and photography by the collaborating investigators on the fungus-growing ants of the USA.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.

设计微生物组以改善动植物健康的规则是什么？哪些生物体使用微生物工程来改善自身健康？这些生物体是否使用特定的机制将有益微生物组装到它们的微生物组中？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。拟议的工作将综合研究一组已经实施了数百万年的微生物组工程的生物，真菌生长的昆虫，特别是真菌生长的蚂蚁。真菌生长的昆虫是农民。他们培育真菌食物花园，这些食物嵌入有益微生物的复杂群落中，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。在过去的三十年里，研究极大地增加了对这种昆虫-微生物相互作用的基因组、微生物、生理学和生物化学的理解。因此，现在存在的兴趣，在这些不同的主机微生物组协会和微生物组engineering的基本规则的比较synthesis.The拟议的工作将产生两个合成阐明微生物组组装和微生物组与主机的相互作用的一般原则。第一个合成将总结最近的微生物，基因组和生物化学的见解真菌生长的昆虫（i）产生的生态和进化过程的综合理解塑造这样复杂的互惠关系;（ii）阐明未解决的争议;（iii）评估这些争议的替代假设;（iv）概述实验工作，以测试这些假设;从而（v）确定有前途的新的研究方向。第二次合成将总结美国真菌生长蚂蚁的生物学，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。第二个合成也将整合25年来未发表的观察和摄影的合作研究人员对真菌生长的蚂蚁的美国。因此，第二次综合将使美国研究人员能够利用当地的生物多样性，发展当地的研究系统。该项目还将制作有关美国所有真菌生长蚂蚁物种的视觉媒体，并向公众传播通用图像。该奖项反映了NSF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。

项目成果

Artificial Selection on Microbiomes To Breed Microbiomes That Confer Salt Tolerance to Plants.

• DOI: 10.1128/msystems.01125-21
• 发表时间: 2021-12-21
• 期刊: mSystems
• 影响因子: 6.4
• 作者: Mueller UG;Juenger TE;Kardish MR;Carlson AL;Burns KM;Edwards JA;Smith CC;Fang CC;Des Marais DL
• 通讯作者: Des Marais DL