Dissertation Research: Coevolutionary Consequences of Symbiosis: a Biogeographic Study of a Fungal Virus

不同生物体之间的密切相互作用在自然界中无处不在，并对参与生物体的进化产生显著影响。拟议的研究将调查共生相互作用对感染玉米真菌病原体的病毒种群属性的影响。具体而言，这项研究将：1）比较祖先和后代病毒群体，2）评估病毒群体之间的迁移和基因流动，3）估计病毒在真菌群体中的感染频率，以及4）估计产生毒素的病毒的频率。这项研究将确定宿主和种群的特征如何影响共生体的进化。复杂的共生相互作用在人类、动物和植物疾病中很重要。更广泛的影响-从该项目中获得的经验将有助于与南美洲研究人员的现有国际合作，以了解共生如何影响农业生态和进化。此外，接受培训参加这项研究的本科生是一个代表性不足的少数民族，他们将在论文学生的指导下进行她的荣誉论文。

Intimate interactions between disparate organisms are ubiquitous throughout nature and have pronounced impacts on the evolution of the participating organisms. The proposed research will investigate the effects of symbiotic interactions on the attributes of the populations of viruses that infect a fungal pathogen of corn. Specifically this research will: 1) compare ancestral and descendant virus populations, 2) assess migration and gene flow among viral populations, 3) estimate the infection frequency of the virus in fungal populations, and 4) estimate the frequency of virus that produce toxins. This research will determine how characteristics of host and populations affect the evolution of the symbiosis. Complex symbiotic interactions are important in human, animal, and plant diseases. Broader Impacts- Experience gained from this project will assist existing international collaborations with researchers in South America in understanding how symbioses can affect agricultural ecology and evolution. In addition, an undergraduate trained to participate in this research is an underrepresented minority who will be conducting her Honors Thesis under the guidance of the dissertation student.