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

昆虫已经成为地球上进化上最成功的动物群体，部分原因是翅膀--它们最引人注目的适应能力。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，在飞行、求偶和防御方面)。尽管如此，还是有无数的昆虫进化成失去了翅膀，或者翅膀退化到不能飞行的地步。蟑螂就是一个很好的例子，因为在它们2.5亿年的进化史上，它们似乎已经几十次失去了功能上的翅膀。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、失去翅膀或重新利用翅膀以实现新功能的价值。特别是，这个项目将检查蟑螂中最专门的亚类--白蚁--及其最接近的蟑螂近亲的翅膀的修改。实现这些目标让我们了解塑造地球生物多样性的过程，人们如何保护这些过程，以及社会如何从这些过程中学习，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一起，在美国和海外合作发展的方式进行。这笔赠款还将资助一个导师讲习班，以最大限度地使项目参与者和当地学术界的其他成员受益。讲习班的目的将是改进专业前和专业阶段的指导方法，以产生更公平的学术成果。这项综合的系统基因组学研究将评估翅膀进化的宏观进化动力学。这项研究将结合对前翼基础的形态研究，以及关于翼presence/absence/vestigiality/mechanical-shedding的系统发育框架的数据，该框架还旨在放置重要的流氓血统。由此产生的祖先状态重建将解决关于机械性翅膀丧失、发育翅膀丧失、恢复、残留以及这些之间的相互关系的进化保守的假设。这一产品将进一步允许有争议的化石的稳健放置，从而改进分歧日期推断。总而言之，这项研究将有助于理解翅膀的进化，白蚁在优势性之前的表型起源，以及蟑螂的进化模式。在智力部分的同时，这笔赠款将用于导师改进研讨会和其他更广泛的影响活动。这一奖励反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.