Collaborative Research: PurSUiT: A Backbone for the Peracarida

甲壳纲动物是一种极其庞大且种类繁多的甲壳类动物，从沙漠到最深的海沟，它们在地球上无处不在。最常见的甲壳纲动物是陆生等足类动物，通常被称为roly polies，它们经常在岩石或花盆下被发现。有深海版和淡水版的roly polies。它们的体型和大小都非常惊人——除了会飞，它们几乎什么都会。尽管它们无处不在，但人们对它们之间的关系知之甚少，这限制了人们对这个群体如何变得如此丰富和多变的理解。该项目的中心目标是解决Peracarida内部的关系。至少30名本科生、3名研究生和1名博士后研究员将接受分子实验室技术、生物信息学、超生物分类学、新物种鉴定和描述、数据管理和职业发展方面的培训。将举办三个讲习班，培训31名研究生和早期职业专业人员，包括超生物系统学、收集、鉴定、保存、生物信息学和数据管理。项目外展将包括社交媒体、不同地区（安克雷奇、洛杉矶和阿拉巴马州西部）的学校外展、博物馆展览、传统广播媒体的双语（西班牙语/英语）外展和一部纪录片短片。本项目的中心目标是在广泛分类群采样的基础上，提供一个健全的甲藻系统发育框架。目前还没有这样的框架存在，这阻碍了对跨大陆形态学、生态学、系统学和生活史所显示的极端多样性所提出的重要问题的研究。该项目将采用目标捕获系统基因组方法，并根据三个新的基因组和50个新的转录组以及公开的转录组和基因组设计探针。采用COI、16S和18S DNA条形码和传统形态学方法相结合的综合分类方法对整个目的生物多样性进行评估。在当前提案的直接范围之外，这项工作有望通过提供一个系统发育框架和一套专门针对Peracarida的综合系统发育工具来催化整个Peracarida的研究。该项目由环境生物学部和促进竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）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。

Peracarids are an extremely large and diverse group of crustacean animals that are found everywhere on Earth, from deserts to the deepest ocean trenches. The most familiar peracarids are the terrestrial isopods, commonly known as roly polies, that are frequently found under rocks or plant pots. There are deep sea and freshwater versions of roly polies. They come in the most amazing body shapes and sizes - peracarids do just about everything except fly. Despite being found everywhere, very little is known about the relationships within Peracarida, limiting understanding of how the group came to be so species-rich and variable. The central goal of this project is to resolve the relationships within Peracarida. At least 30 undergraduate students, three graduate students, and a postdoctoral researcher will be trained in molecular laboratory techniques, bioinformatics, peracarid taxonomy, identification and description of new species, data management, and career development. Three workshops will be held to train 31 graduate students and early career professionals in peracarid systematics, collection, identification, preservation, bioinformatics, and data management. Project outreach will include social media, outreach to schools in diverse districts (Anchorage, Los Angeles, and western Alabama), museum exhibits, and bilingual (Spanish/English) outreach in traditional broadcast media and a short documentary film.The central goal of this project is to provide a robust phylogenetic framework for Peracarida based on broad taxon sampling. Currently, no such framework exists, which impedes research into important questions raised by the extreme diversity displayed across peracarid morphology, ecology, systematics and life history. The project will use a target capture phylogenomic approach with probe design informed by three new genomes and 50 new transcriptomes, as well as publicly available transcriptomes and genomes. Biodiversity across the order will be assessed using an integrative taxonomic approach combining DNA barcoding of COI, 16S and 18S and traditional morphological approaches. Beyond the immediate scope of the current proposal, this work is expected to catalyze research across Peracarida by providing a phylogenetic framework and a comprehensive set of phylogenomic tools specialized for Peracarida.This project is jointly funded by the Division of Environmental Biology and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.