OPUS: From the Tangled Bank to Genbank: Multi-Scale Approaches to Insect-Plant Interactions

在这个项目中，两名研究人员共同花费了半个多世纪的时间来研究一种原本不起眼的小褐蛾和它的寄主有毒杂草，他们将写一本关于生态相互作用的科学《传记》。防风网虫和野生防风之间相互作用的看似普通的本质掩盖了非凡的复杂性；这些研究人员将在一本面向专家和非专家的书中展示生态相互作用的复杂性，以及多尺度方法在理解生物系统方面的价值。这本书将涵盖空间尺度，从在毛虫肠道中代谢植物毒素的酶中的氨基酸，到这些物种被人类商业运输出天然范围时这些物种分布模式的半球水平的变化；时间尺度，从叶片被咀嚼时光合作用的毫秒变化，到几个世纪以来植物化学的进化变化。这个项目的更广泛的影响是，它将说明在多个层面上解决科学问题的巨大价值。科学培训已经变得越来越专业化，尽管跨领域知识的扩展使21世纪科学竞争力的广泛视角变得更加重要。这本书既可以作为有用的信息来源，也可以作为交互生态的多尺度方法的价值的一个例子。通过这个例子，植物化学、昆虫分子生物学、生态学、进化生物学以及昆虫和植物生理学领域的研究人员可能会在他们自己的研究中看到跨越不同尺度的联系。出版一本图文并茂的引人入胜的书可以使研究人员和教育工作者都受益，并通过促进更广泛地欣赏关于宿主/病原体和作物/虫害等生物相互作用的多尺度研究，从而造福于整个社会，这些生物相互作用可能对人类健康和福祉产生深远影响。

In this project, two investigators who have collectively devoted more than a half-century to the study of an otherwise unremarkable small brown moth and the noxious weed that is its hostplant will write a scientific "biography" of an ecological interaction. The seemingly ordinary nature of the interaction between parsnip webworms and wild parsnips belies extraordinary complexity; these investigators will showcase, in a book for both specialists and nonspecialists, the complexities of ecological interaction and the value of a multiscale approach for understanding biological systems. The book will cover spatial scales ranging from amino acids in enzymes that metabolize plant toxins in caterpillar guts to hemisphere-level changes in distribution patterns of these species as they are transported out of their native range by human commerce; temporal scales range from millisecond changes in photosynthesis of leaves as they are chewed to evolutionary shifts in plant chemistry over centuries.The broader impact of this project is that it will illustrate the tremendous value of approaching scientific questions at multiple levels. Scientific training has become increasingly specialized even as expansion of knowledge across fields places a premium on broad-based perspectives for 21st century scientific competitiveness. This book can serve as both a useful source of information and as an example of the value of multiscale approaches to interaction ecology. Investigators in the fields of plant chemistry, insect molecular biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and insect and plant physiology might, by virtue of this example, see connections across different scales in their own studies. Publication of an engaging, well-illustrated book can benefit both researchers and educators and as well benefit society at large by fostering a broader appreciation of multiscale research on such biological interactions as host/pathogen and crop/pest interactions, which can have profound impacts on human health and well-being.