CAREER: Deciphering how dynamic environments and nutrition affect life history tradeoffs in a highly migratory insect pest

当环境迅速变化时，昆虫种群可以适应他们的环境，迁移到一个新的环境，或者死亡。蝗虫是一种可以根据需要移动的蝗虫，从躲避其他蝗虫的阶段过渡到一大群蝗虫一起从一个地区迁移到另一个地区(迁徙)。由于蝗虫群会破坏庄稼，因此人们对蝗虫进行了大量研究，以了解蝗虫迁徙的控制。这些昆虫能够迅速改变，当它们选择获得遥远的资源而不是其他生命需求时，它们能够迅速发展迁徙能力，例如免疫功能和繁殖。然而，尽管蝗虫可能对生态系统(包括农作物)和人类社区产生破坏性影响(农作物的破坏影响农民的生计)，但人们对环境因素如何触发蝗虫的这种变化知之甚少。众所周知，在各种动物中，各种营养物质的可获得性会影响生长、繁殖和免疫学。虽然营养变异被认为是一个关键因素，但此前还没有研究评估营养变异如何影响昆虫的迁徙能力。这个职业项目将结合当地和国际的教育机会，以及实验室和实地研究，以测试营养、人口密度和历史栖息地变异性如何相互作用，影响蝗虫的迁徙、免疫功能和繁殖。研究结果将被用于制定可持续管理和政策建议，并将提供给全球合作伙伴，以改善生计、人类和环境健康。这一职业项目将回答有关决定是否发生移民的机制的基本问题：(1)与移民和非移民相关的生理权衡，特别是在迁徙、抗击疾病和繁殖能力之间的权衡？(2)人口密度和营养质量(特别是饮食的蛋白质：碳水化合物比例)如何影响这些权衡？(3)历史环境变化如何影响人口水平对移民诱导刺激的反应？(进化了更多不同栖息地的种群是否更有可能迁移？)回答这些问题将广泛地促进我们对动物为什么以及如何迁徙，如何预测迁徙对全球变化的反应的理解，并为这种最重要的经济害虫之一的生态生理学提供基本的见解。PI在亚利桑那州立大学建立了蝗虫群落和饲养设施的长期研究伙伴关系，以及吸引大学学员、农民和国际学者的教育计划的结合，将允许前所未有的综合实验室和实地研究-将个人生物功能与大陆水平的景观联系起来。此外，PI和她的团队将开发一门研究密集型本科课程，在该课程中，学生将从事新颖的研究，并与人共同撰写该项目的同行评议论文。为了满足培训更多的生物学家和害虫管理官员在蝗虫生物学方面的需要，特别是来自代表性不足的群体，该项目将支持亚利桑那州立大学的一个研讨会。这笔赠款是由综合组织系统部门的综合生态生理学项目和环境生物学部门的人口和社区生态集群共同资助的。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。

When the environment changes rapidly, insect populations can adapt to their environment, move to a new environment, or perish. Locusts are grasshoppers that can move as needed, transitioning from a phase where they avoid other locusts to a massive swarm of locusts moving together from one region to another (migration). Because locust swarms can destroy crops, a lot of research has been conducted on locusts to understand the control of migration. These insects are able to change quickly to develop the ability to migrate when they choose access to distant resources over other life needs, such as immune function and reproduction. However, despite the devastating impact locusts can have on ecosystems (including crops) and human communities (destruction of crops impacts farmer livelihoods), little is known about how environmental factors trigger this change in locusts. It is known that in a variety of animals, the availability of various nutrients affects growth, reproduction, and immunology. While nutritional variation is expected to be a key factor, no prior research has evaluated how nutritional variation affects the ability of insects to migrate. This CAREER project will combine local and international educational opportunities, as well as lab and field research to test how nutrition, population density, and historical habitat variability interact to affect migration, immune function, and reproduction of locusts. The results will be used to develop sustainable management and policy recommendations and will be provided to global partners to improve livelihoods, and human and environmental health.This CAREER project will answer fundamental questions about the mechanisms that determine whether migration occurs: (1) What are the physiological trade-offs associated with migrating vs. not migrating, specifically among capacities to migrate, fight disease, and reproduce? (2) How do population density and nutritional quality (specifically protein:carbohydrate ratio of the diet) affect these tradeoffs? (3) How does historical environmental variability affect population-level variation in responses to migration-inducing stimuli? (Are populations that have evolved with more variable habitats more likely to migrate?) Answering these questions will broadly advance our understanding of why and how animals migrate, how to predict migratory responses to global change, and provide fundamental insights into the ecophysiology of one of the most economically important insect pests. A combination of the PI's long-term research partnerships established locust colonies and rearing facilities at ASU, and education plan engaging university trainees, farmers, and international scholars will allow for unprecedented integrated lab and field research-connecting individual biological function with continental-level landscapes. In addition, the PI and her team will develop a research-intensive undergraduate course where students will engage in novel research and co-author peer-reviewed papers from this project. To meet the need to train more biologists and pest management officials in locust biology, particularly from underrepresented groups, this project will support a workshop at ASU.This grant was cofunded by the Integrative Ecological Physiology Program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems and The Population and Community Ecology Cluster in the Division of Environmental Biology.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.