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，昆虫种群可以适应环境，迁移到新的环境，或者灭亡。蝗虫是一种可以根据需要移动的蚱蜢，从一个躲避其他蝗虫的阶段过渡到一大群蝗虫一起从一个地区移动到另一个地区（迁徙）。由于蝗虫群会破坏农作物，人们对蝗虫进行了大量的研究，以了解如何控制迁徙。当这些昆虫选择获取遥远的资源而不是其他生命需求（如免疫功能和繁殖）时，它们能够迅速改变，发展出迁移的能力。然而，尽管蝗虫可能对生态系统（包括作物）和人类社区造成破坏性影响（作物的破坏会影响农民的生计），但人们对环境因素如何引发蝗虫的这种变化知之甚少。众所周知，在各种动物中，各种营养物质的可用性影响着生长、繁殖和免疫。虽然营养变化被认为是一个关键因素，但之前没有研究评估营养变化如何影响昆虫的迁徙能力。该项目将结合本地和国际教育机会，以及实验室和实地研究，以测试营养、种群密度和历史栖息地变化如何相互作用，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，以改善生计以及人类和环境健康。这个CAREER项目将回答有关决定迁移是否发生的机制的基本问题：(1)迁移与不迁移相关的生理权衡是什么，特别是在迁移、对抗疾病和繁殖的能力之间？(2)人口密度和营养质量（特别是饮食中的蛋白质：碳水化合物比例）如何影响这些权衡？(3)历史环境变异性如何影响人口对迁移刺激反应的水平变化？（在更多变的栖息地中进化的种群更有可能迁移吗？）回答这些问题将广泛推进我们对动物迁徙的原因和方式的理解，如何预测对全球变化的迁徙反应，并为最重要的经济害虫之一的生态生理学提供基本见解。PI的长期研究合作伙伴关系在亚利桑那州立大学建立了蝗虫群落和饲养设施，教育计划吸引了大学学员、农民和国际学者，这将使前所未有的综合实验室和实地研究成为可能，将个体生物功能与大陆层面的景观联系起来。此外，PI和她的团队将开发一个研究密集型的本科课程，学生将参与新颖的研究，并共同撰写该项目的同行评审论文。为了满足在蝗虫生物学方面培训更多生物学家和虫害管理官员的需要，特别是来自代表性不足的群体，本项目将支持在亚利桑那州立大学举办一个讲习班。该基金由综合生物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。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。

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.