Collaborative Research: Adaptation or opportunity? Using mammal sucking lice to determine drivers of host-parasite associations

合作研究：适应还是机遇？

• 批准号: 2206732
• 负责人: Kayce Bell
• 金额: $ 53.84万
• 依托单位: Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2206732&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Adaptation; opportunity; Using

Parasitism is one of the most common forms of life on the planet. However, it is largely unknown why organisms parasitize some species but not others. Sucking lice parasitize one or a few mammal host species, but it is unclear if this limited number of hosts is due to the inability of a louse to parasitize other species or simply lack of opportunity to encounter additional hosts. This research project will investigate how the evolutionary history, genes, and physical traits of sucking lice, including human lice, determine what host species they can parasitize. These findings will also identify potential genetic and physical traits important in parasitism to investigate in other parasites. More broadly, this research can be used to help understand the likelihood of a parasite moving to a new host and help to reduce or mitigate the consequences of new parasites. This project will train students and researchers in cutting-edge research methods, generate college-level curricula, and use virtual reality experiences to educate the public about the diversity of lice and their traits. To investigate selection and adaptations in sucking lice, this project will use high-throughput sequencing to build the first phylogenomic tree for mammalian sucking lice (Anoplura). Next, the project will generate a database of louse morphological characters and spatial distributions through novel machine learning algorithms to mine species descriptions. Third, this investigation will assemble louse coding genes and genomes and use nanoCT scanning and geometric morphometrics to characterize phenotypic traits of distantly related louse taxa parasitizing the same host species. These datasets will be integrated to: 1) date louse diversification events and test for host-parasite codiversification, 2) examine the evolution of louse morphological characters and association of louse traits with host characters, 3) assess louse biogeographic histories and distributions relative to hosts, and 4) determine which genomic and morphological traits are under selection to facilitate parasitism. This project will determine if louse diversification and host associations are primarily driven by history and host adaptations, or if louse adaptations could permit parasitism of a diversity of hosts but are restricted to one or a few host species due to limited dispersal and ultimately address the question, “Why and how to be a parasite?”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.

寄生是地球上最常见的生命形式之一。然而，为什么生物会寄生一些物种而不是其他物种，人们在很大程度上还不清楚。吸虱寄生在一种或几种哺乳动物宿主物种中，但目前尚不清楚这种有限的宿主数量是因为虱子无法寄生其他物种，还是只是因为没有机会遇到更多的宿主。这项研究项目将调查包括人类虱子在内的吸虱的进化史、基因和身体特征如何决定它们可以寄生哪些宿主物种。这些发现还将确定在寄生虫中重要的潜在遗传和物理特征，以研究其他寄生虫。更广泛地说，这项研究可以用来帮助了解寄生虫转移到新宿主的可能性，并有助于减少或减轻新寄生虫的后果。该项目将对学生和研究人员进行尖端研究方法的培训，制作大学水平的课程，并使用虚拟现实体验来教育公众关于虱子的多样性及其特征。为了研究吸虱的选择和适应，本项目将使用高通量测序技术建立第一个哺乳动物吸虱(Anoplura)的系统发育树。接下来，该项目将通过新的机器学习算法生成虱子形态特征和空间分布的数据库，以挖掘物种描述。第三，这项研究将组装虱子编码基因和基因组，并使用纳米CT扫描和几何形态计量学来表征寄生在同一寄主物种上的远缘虱子分类群的表型特征。这些数据集将被整合到：1)日期虱子多样化事件和宿主-寄生虫共多样化测试，2)检查虱子形态特征的演变和虱子特征与宿主特征的关联，3)评估虱子的生物地理历史和相对于宿主的分布，以及4)确定哪些基因组和形态特征被选择以促进寄生。该项目将确定虱子多样化和宿主关联是否主要受历史和宿主适应的驱动，或者虱子适应是否允许多种宿主的寄生，但由于有限的传播而仅限于一个或几个宿主物种，并最终解决“为什么以及如何成为寄生虫？”这一奖项反映了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。