Collaborative Research: Integrative Phylogenomics of Wing Repurposing, Vestigiality and Loss

合作研究：机翼再利用、退化和损失的综合系统基因组学

• 批准号: 2209323
• 负责人: Dominic Evangelista
• 金额: $ 27.75万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-01-01 至 2025-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2209323&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Integrative; Phylogenomics; Wing

Insects have become the most evolutionarily successful group of animals on Earth due, in part, to wings – their most striking adaptation. Wings provide insects with a myriad of advantages (e.g., in flight, courtship, defense) over their non-winged relatives. Despite this, there are countless examples of insects that have evolved to have lost their wings, or have had them reduced to the point that they are not functional for flight. Cockroaches are a prime example of this, as it appears that they have lost functional wings dozens of times throughout their 250 million year evolutionary history. This research will describe cockroach wing evolution patterns, with the aim of better understanding the value of having wings, losing them, or repurposing them for new functions. In particular, this project will examine modifications of wings in the most specialized subgroup of cockroaches – termites – and their closest cockroach relatives. Achieving these aims teaches us about the processes that shape Earth’s biodiversity, how people might conserve those processes, and how societies can learn from them to better achieve their own aims (e.g., bioinspired design of technology). The project will be carried out in a manner that will bring together international students for collaborative development in the US and abroad. The grant will also fund a mentorship workshop to maximize the benefit to project participants and other members of the local academic community. The workshop will aim to improve mentorship approaches at the pre-professional and professional stage to generate more equitable academic outcomes. This integrated phylogenomic study will assess the macro-evolutionary dynamics of wing-evolution. The research will integrate morphological study of the forewing base, and data on wing presence/absence/vestigiality/mechanical-shedding over a phylogenetic framework that additionally aims to place important rogue lineages. The resulting ancestral state reconstruction will address hypotheses about the evolutionary conservation of mechanical wing-loss, developmental wing-loss, regain, vestigiality, and correlations among these. This product will further allow robust placement of controversial fossils and thus improve divergence date inferences. In all, this study will lend understanding to the evolution of wings, the origins of phenotypes preceding eusociality in termites, and evolutionary patterns among cockroaches. Concurrent to the intellectual component, this grant will fund a mentorship improvement workshop, and other broader impact activities.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.

昆虫已经成为地球上进化最成功的动物群体，部分原因在于它们的翅膀——它们最引人注目的适应性。与没有翅膀的近亲相比，翅膀为昆虫提供了无数的优势（例如，飞行、求偶、防御）。尽管如此，仍有无数昆虫在进化过程中失去了翅膀，或者翅膀缩小到无法飞行的程度。蟑螂就是一个典型的例子，在2.5亿年的进化史中，它们似乎失去了几十次功能性的翅膀。这项研究将描述蟑螂翅膀的进化模式，目的是更好地理解拥有翅膀、失去翅膀或将它们重新用于新功能的价值。特别是，这个项目将研究蟑螂最特殊的亚群——白蚁——及其最接近的蟑螂亲戚翅膀的变化。实现这些目标让我们了解了塑造地球生物多样性的过程，人们如何保护这些过程，以及社会如何从中学习以更好地实现自己的目标（例如，生物启发的技术设计）。该项目将以一种将国际学生聚集在美国和国外合作发展的方式进行。赠款还将资助导师研讨会，以最大限度地提高项目参与者和当地学术界其他成员的利益。研讨会旨在改善专业前和专业阶段的指导方法，以产生更公平的学术成果。这项综合系统基因组学研究将评估翅膀进化的宏观进化动力学。该研究将整合前翼基础的形态学研究，以及在系统发育框架中关于机翼存在/缺失/退化/机械脱落的数据，该框架还旨在确定重要的流浪谱系。由此产生的祖先状态重建将解决关于机械失翼，发育失翼，恢复，退化及其相关性的进化保护的假设。该产品将进一步允许有争议的化石的稳健放置，从而改善分化日期推断。总而言之，这项研究将有助于理解翅膀的进化，白蚁在群居性之前的表型起源，以及蟑螂的进化模式。与智力部分同时，这项奖助金将资助一个指导改进工作坊，以及其他更广泛的影响活动。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。