AToL: Collaborative Research on Ant Phylogeny: A Comprehensive Evolutionary Tree for the World's Premier Social Organisms

蚂蚁起源于白垩纪，比恐龙还长寿，是地球生命史上最伟大的成功故事之一。 蚂蚁约有20，000种，在许多陆地环境中占主导地位，在某些栖息地，它们占所有动物总重量的15%至20%。 蚂蚁之所以如此普遍和重要，主要原因可能是它们复杂的、合作的社会。 蚂蚁参与了与无数其他生物体的亲密生物学相互作用，并表现出许多显着的行为，包括真菌农业，收获种子，放牧和“挤奶”其他昆虫，合作狩猎，奴隶制造和共同筑巢。 蚂蚁的这些行为与人类的相似之处激发了公众和科学界的好奇心。 不幸的是，人类对蚂蚁的了解，由于缺乏对蚂蚁历史和遗传学的科学研究而受到影响。 这个研究项目将通过重建蚂蚁的历史来解决这个问题，从恐龙时代到现在，使用蚂蚁解剖学和蚂蚁DNA的证据。 前几代蚂蚁研究人员无法使用的技术，如PCR扩增和基因DNA测序，将用于收集分子数据。 其中一些数据将来自新发现的基因，这也将产生关于其他动物遗传学的广泛见解。 这些数据将使用最先进的计算算法和硬件进行分析，以重建所有主要蚂蚁谱系的“家谱”。 蚂蚁历史上重大事件的日期将通过结合化石证据和分子测年技术来推断。 这些结果将与大量已有的蚂蚁生态学和行为学数据相结合，为蚂蚁生物学提供新的视角，并为未来的研究提供新的途径。该项目将对科学和社会产生重大影响。 这项工作将涉及大学和博物馆教师，博士后研究人员，研究生和本科生以及技术人员，他们将在项目的所有阶段与国际科学合作者团队进行互动。 蚂蚁生物学的研究在许多学科中占据核心地位，包括生态学，保护生物学，分子生物学和遗传学，化学通讯，生物多样性研究和人工智能研究。 仅举一例，蚂蚁多样性已成为保护生物学中栖息地质量的主要指标，因此更好地了解蚂蚁的历史和遗传学将提高我们做出明智保护决策的能力。 这一项目产生的信息将通过科学出版物以及一本面向更广大读者的书传播。 该项目的科学成果还将以方便用户的互联网界面在万维网上公布，供科学界所有感兴趣的成员和公众查阅。

AbstractEF 0431330Philip Ward, University of California at DavisOriginating in the Cretaceous Period and outliving the dinosaurs, ants are one of the greatest success stories in the history of life on Planet Earth. Numbering approximately 20,000 species, ants dominate many terrestrial environments and in some habitats they constitute 15 to 20% of the total weight of all animals combined. Perhaps the major factor contributing to the ubiquity and importance of ants is their complex, cooperative societies. Ants are involved in intimate biological interactions with countless other organisms, and exhibit many remarkable behaviors, including agriculture of fungi, harvesting of seeds, herding and "milking" of other insects, cooperative hunting in packs, slave-making, and communal nest weaving. The parallels between these behaviors in ants and those found in humans have inspired public and scientific curiosity alike. Human understanding of ants suffers, unfortunately, from a lack of scientific research on ant history and genetics. This research project will remedy this problem by reconstructing the history of ants, from the Age of Dinosaurs to the present, using evidence both from ant anatomy and ant DNA. Techniques unavailable to previous generations of ant researchers, such as PCR amplification and DNA sequencing of genes, will be used to gather molecular data. Some of these data will come from newly discovered genes, which will also yield broad insights about the genetics of other animals. These data will be analyzed using state-of-the-art computing algorithms and hardware in order to reconstruct the "family tree" of all major lineages of ants. Dates for major events in the history of ants will be inferred by combining fossil evidence with molecular dating techniques. These results will be integrated with the large body of pre-existing data on ant ecology and behavior, in order to cast new light on ant biology and to suggest new pathways for future investigation.This project will have a substantial impact on both science and society. This work will involve university and museum faculty, postdoctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and technical staff who will interact during all stages of the project with an international team of scientific collaborators. The study of ant biology occupies a central role in a diverse number of disciplines including ecology, conservation biology, molecular biology and genetics, chemical communication, biodiversity studies, and artificial intelligence research. As just one example, ant diversity has become a leading indicator of habitat quality in conservation biology, so a better understanding of the history and genetics of ants will increase our ability to make informed conservation decisions. The information generated by this project will be disseminated through scientific publications, as well as through a book geared towards a more general audience. The scientific results from this project also will be presented in user-friendly internet interfaces on the World-Wide Web, which will be made available to all interested members of the scientific community and the general public.