AToL: Collaborative Proposal: Assembling the Protostome Tree of Life

哈佛大学的冈萨洛·吉里贝特博士和他的合作者们获得了一笔资金，用于组装原生动物生命之树的基本主干，其中包括除了与脊椎动物直接相关的动物外的所有三胚层动物（具有三层身体的动物，与更简单的水母、海葵和海绵相反）。在已命名的170万种生物体中，原口动物占了100多万种，包括我们熟悉的动物，如软体动物、昆虫、蚯蚓、扁形虫、蛔虫以及许多其他在医学和经济上具有重要意义的动物。然而，这些群体之间的关系仍然存在争议，因此动物生命之树的骨干目前还不能在没有很大程度的不确定性的情况下提出。该提案将整合和传播有关选定的代表性动物的尽可能广泛的信息，以解决它们在5.4亿多年中起源和进化的问题。为了做到这一点，我们将利用细胞谱系研究和广泛的基因组信息，将现存和灭绝动物群的解剖数据与发育数据结合起来。这些数据将用于大量的原生生物物种，这些物种将在非模式生物中从未尝试过的水平上进行研究。这项研究的结果将有助于改写人们对动物进化的认识。授予的赠款将有助于培训不同学术水平的学生，强调在科学领域代表性不足的群体。研究结果将通过与世界上最著名的五家自然历史博物馆的合作向社会传播，其中包括哈佛自然历史博物馆和美国自然历史博物馆，以及澳大利亚和丹麦最重要的博物馆。AToL原体团队还打算在非专业科学杂志上发表一篇文章，以供广泛的外行读者使用。

A grant has been awarded to Dr. Gonzalo Giribet of Harvard University and collaborators to assemble the basic backbone of the protostome tree of life, which includes all triploblastic animals (animals with three body layers, as opposed to the simpler jellyfish, anemones, and sponges) except those directly related to vertebrates. Protostomes constitute more than one million of the 1.7 million named species of living organisms, including familiar animals such as mollusks, insects, earthworms, flatworms, roundworms, and many others of medical and economic importance. However, relationships among these groups are still contentious, so the backbone of the animal tree of life cannot currently be proposed without a large degree of uncertainty. This proposal will integrate and disseminate the broadest possible collection of information on selected representative animals to address questions of their origin and evolution over more than 540 million years. In order to do this we will integrate anatomical data on extant and extinct fauna with developmental data using cell-lineage studies and broad-based genomic information. Those data will be collected for a large pool of protostome species which will be studied at a level never before attempted in non-model organisms. The outcome of this research will contribute to rewriting what it is known about animal evolution. The awarded grant will contribute to the training of students at different academic levels, emphasizing underrepresented groups in science. Results will be disseminated to society through partnership with five of the most prominent natural history museums in the world, including the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History in the USA, and the most important museums in Australia and Denmark. It is also the intention of the AToL protostome team to publish an article in non-specialist scientific magazines for a broad lay audience.