ARTS: A corevision of the pinhole borers (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Platypodinae) and symbiotic fungi (Raffaelea spp.) via multi-generational systematics training

针孔钻虫是一种未被充分研究的钻木甲虫，它们钻到树上并种植真菌作为食物。有些已经成为树木的害虫，有些正在成为入侵者，还有数百种是罕见的，独特的，完全未知的科学。由于热带森林的持续消失，许多针孔钻虫可能已经灭绝。该项目将总结有关这些甲虫及其共生真菌的已知信息，同时使用现代DNA测序和显微镜技术生成有关它们的新数据。由于缺乏分类学家研究针孔钻虫及其共生真菌是美国生物安全的差距-甲虫和真菌都可以成为害虫-该项目将培养研究生和本科生作为下一代昆虫学家和真菌学家。外展目标包括通过维基百科上的策展信息广泛传播有关木蛀虫的准确信息，以及鼓励美国房主保留其财产上的枯木作为城市景观中生物多样性的避难所的具体活动。该项目将同时修订两个共生体群体，这两个群体具有魅力，重要，有时是有害的，但受到典型的分类学障碍的影响。该项目的主要目标是识别、分类和描述针孔蛀虫及其共生真菌，以及记录这两个群体与它们所生活的树木之间的许多相互作用。实现这些目标是通过对数千个个体的DNA序列数据进行遗传学分析，并使用照片和显微镜收集新的形态学数据来识别甲虫-真菌相互作用。该项目产生的大量数据集将被用于为人类和在线聚合器制作的许多产品，包括针孔钻虫的电子专著、分类学出版物、照片和基于人工智能的识别工具。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为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来支持。

Pinhole borers are an understudied group of woodboring beetles that drill into trees and farm fungi for food. Some have become pests of trees, some are becoming invasive, and hundreds more are rare, unique, and entirely unknown to science. Given the ongoing disappearance of tropical forests, many pinhole borers may already be extinct. This project will summarize what is known about these beetles and their symbiotic fungi while generating new data about them using modern DNA sequencing and microscopy technologies. Because the lack of taxonomists working on pinhole borers and their symbiotic fungi is a biosecurity gap for the U.S – both the beetles and the fungi can become pests – this project will train graduate and undergraduate students as the next generation of entomologists and mycologists. Outreach goals include the broad dissemination of accurate information about wood borers through curating information on Wikipedia, and a specific campaign to encourage homeowners in the United States to retain dead wood on their properties as a refuge of biodiversity in urban landscapes.This project will undertake a simultaneous revision of two symbiont groups that are charismatic, important, and sometimes pestiferous, but suffer from the typical taxonomic impediments. The main goals of the project are to identify, classify and describe the pinhole borer beetles and their symbiotic fungi, in addition to documenting the many interactions between these two groups and the trees in which they live. Attaining these aims are enabled by phylogenetically analyzing DNA sequence data from thousands of individuals and collecting new morphological data using photographs and microscopy to identify beetle-fungus interactions. The vast datasets generated by this project will feed into many products which will be made for both humans and online aggregators, including an e-monograph of pinhole borers, taxonomic publications, photographs, and an AI-based identification tool.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.