Collaborative Research: Discovering eukaryotic symbionts across diverse insect communities

合作研究：发现不同昆虫群落中的真核共生体

• 批准号: 2405206
• 负责人: Andrew Forbes
• 金额: $ 29万
• 依托单位: University of Iowa
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-04-01 至 2027-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2405206&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Discovering; eukaryotic; symbionts

Even as biodiversity declines worldwide, many species remain undiscovered. One major source of “hidden” diversity may be the many mites, nematodes, fungi, and protist symbionts that live inside insects. Such organisms are known to have associations with insects but detecting their presence and quantifying their diversity pose major challenges. This is a potentially massive oversight toward an understanding of global species diversity: if insect-associated symbionts are also often specialized on just one or a few species of insect, this would imply the existence of millions of undescribed and uncounted species, requiring a revision of global species richness estimates. This research will lead to the development of new methods to reveal the eukaryotic symbionts living inside insects. It will also apply those methods to the most ambitious surveys of insect-symbiont diversity to date, spanning two natural insect communities in two different habitats. The research will be integrated into public events in Iowa and Ohio where participants will learn about biodiversity and participate in sampling insects to be used in the research. A major theme will be how much diversity may be hiding even in our own backyards. This project will also contribute to the training of undergraduate and graduate students on two campuses, one which is a primarily undergraduate-serving institution. Students will participate in the proposed research but will also receive valuable mentoring in teaching and scientific outreach.The researchers will develop PCR blocking primers that inhibit amplification of 18S rRNA from the five largest orders of insects (representing 75% of all described insect species) but that permit amplification of 18S rRNA from any other eukaryote in a sample. They will also iteratively design blocking primers for large and/or common symbiont groups detected in natural samples so that smaller/rare symbionts may also be detected. These methods will allow detection of any eukaryotic symbiont associated with insects in the five largest orders (Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, and Lepidoptera). Two first-of-their-kind symbiont diversity surveys will apply the developed methods to 1000 insects collected from each of two natural communities, interrogating all insect hosts for eukaryotic symbionts. Preliminary data show that blockers are effective at greatly reducing host insect DNA amplification and successfully detect mites, nematodes, fungi, and even single-celled apicomplexan protists associated with individual insects.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.

尽管全球生物多样性在下降，但许多物种仍未被发现。“隐藏”多样性的一个主要来源可能是许多生活在昆虫体内的螨、线虫、真菌和原生生物共生体。已知这些生物与昆虫有联系，但检测它们的存在并量化它们的多样性构成了重大挑战。这对了解全球物种多样性来说可能是一个巨大的疏忽：如果昆虫相关共生体也经常专门针对一种或几种昆虫，这将意味着存在数百万个未描述和未计数的物种，需要修订全球物种丰富度估计。这项研究将导致新方法的发展，以揭示生活在昆虫体内的真核共生体。它还将把这些方法应用于迄今为止最雄心勃勃的昆虫共生体多样性调查，涵盖两个不同栖息地的两个自然昆虫群落。这项研究将被纳入爱荷华州和俄亥俄州的公共活动中，参与者将了解生物多样性，并参与研究中使用的昆虫取样。一个主要的主题将是有多少多样性可能隐藏在我们自己的后院。该项目还将有助于在两个校区培训本科生和研究生，其中一个校区主要为本科生服务。研究人员将开发PCR阻断引物，抑制来自五个最大昆虫目（占所有描述的昆虫物种的75%）的18 S rRNA扩增，但允许扩增样品中任何其他真核生物的18 S rRNA。他们还将反复设计用于在天然样品中检测到的大型和/或常见共生体组的阻断引物，以便也可以检测到较小/罕见的共生体。这些方法将允许检测与五个最大的目的（鞘翅目，Hyplutera，双翅目，半翅目和鳞翅目）中的昆虫相关的任何真核生物共生体。两个第一的共生体多样性调查将适用于1000昆虫收集的两个自然社区，询问所有昆虫宿主的真核生物共生体。初步数据显示，阻断剂能有效降低宿主昆虫的DNA扩增，并成功检测螨、线虫、真菌，甚至与单个昆虫相关的单细胞顶复门原生生物。该奖项反映了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。