BIOCOMPLEXITY: Integrating Genomic and Ecological Analysis of Symbiotic Bacteria that Mediate Insect Herbivory

[au:][9981432]许多植食性昆虫依靠细菌共生体来补充营养：没有共生体，这些昆虫就不能生长或繁殖。在某些情况下，共生体的传播只发生在母亲到后代之间；这些细菌拥有特殊的遗传特征，使它们能够更好地滋养宿主。其他共生体通过其他途径感染宿主，似乎不那么专门化。现代基因组学方法将用于探索长期共生体的基因含量和基因表达如何在不同环境下影响寄主的营养和生长，例如寄主植物的营养质量差异。此外，还将探讨兼性共生体对昆虫生长和生存的影响，目前尚不清楚。实验将测试这些更具移动性的共生体是由昆虫宿主的寄生虫带菌体还是对这些寄生虫具有抵抗力。虽然细菌共生体是昆虫与植物相互作用的核心，包括那些影响农作物和森林的生物，但它们的生物学鲜为人知。拟议的工作将利用分子生物学的最新发展来揭示植物食性昆虫生物学中共生效应的全部范围。研究结果有可能揭示出新的、特定的昆虫控制方法，这些方法可能比常用的化学控制措施成本更低或危害更小。这一项目得到生物科学局以及化学司和公安部多学科活动办公室的支助，将影响若干科学领域，其研究结果可能为环境和生物技术应用提供有用的基本资料。

Moran9981432Many plant-feeding insects are dependent on bacterial symbionts tosupplement their nutrition: without symbionts, these insects cannot grow orreproduce. In some cases, transmission of symbionts occurs only from motherto progeny; these bacteria possess specialized genetic traits that allowthem to better nourish their hosts. Other symbionts infect hosts throughother routes and appear less specialized. Approaches from modern genomicswill be used to explore how gene content and gene expression of long-termsymbionts affect host nutrition and growth under different environments,such as host plants differing in nutritional quality. In addition, theeffects of facultative symbionts on insect growth and survival, currentlyunknown, will be explored. Experiments will test whether these more mobilesymbionts are vectored by parasites of the insect hosts or conferresistance to these parasites.Although bacterial symbionts are central in insect-plant interactions,including those affecting agricultural crops and forests, their biology islittle known. The proposed work would exploit recent developments inmolecular biology to reveal the full range of symbiont effects on thebiology of plant-feeding insects. Results have the potential of exposingnovel, specific methods for insect control that might be less costly orhazardous than commonly used chemical control measures. This project, which is being supported by the Directorates for Biological Sciences and and by the Division of Chemistry and the MPS Office of Multidisciplinary Activities, will impact several scientific fields, and the findings may provide basic information useful for both environmental and biotechnological applications.