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

寄生虫是地球上最常见的生命形式之一。然而，很大程度上还不清楚为什么生物体寄生于某些物种而不是其他物种。吸虱寄生于一种或几种哺乳动物宿主物种，但目前尚不清楚这种有限数量的宿主是否是由于虱无法寄生于其他物种或仅仅是缺乏机会遇到其他宿主。该研究项目将调查包括人类虱子在内的吸虱的进化历史，基因和物理特征如何决定它们可以寄生的宿主物种。这些发现也将确定潜在的遗传和物理特性的重要寄生虫调查在其他寄生虫。更广泛地说，这项研究可用于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。该项目将培训学生和研究人员掌握尖端的研究方法，生成大学水平的课程，并使用虚拟现实体验来教育公众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来构建哺乳动物吸虱（Anoplura）的第一个基因组树。接下来，该项目将通过新颖的机器学习算法来挖掘物种描述，从而生成虱子形态特征和空间分布的数据库。第三，本研究将组装虱子编码基因和基因组，并使用纳米CT扫描和几何形态测量学来表征寄生在同一宿主物种上的远亲虱子类群的表型特征。这些数据集将被整合到：1）日期虱子多样化事件和测试宿主-寄生虫共多样化，2）检查虱子形态特征的进化和虱子性状与宿主性状的关联，3）评估虱子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正在被选择以促进寄生。该项目将确定虱子的多样化和主机协会主要是由历史和主机的适应性，或者如果虱子的适应性可以允许寄生的主机的多样性，但仅限于一个或几个主机物种，由于有限的传播，并最终解决这个问题，“为什么和如何成为一个寄生虫？”该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得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的支持。

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.