DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Morphological and Behavioral Evolution in Myrmecocystus

了解形态和行为进化与物种形成和生物地理分化的相互作用仍然是生物学的主要任务之一。这需要有充分支持的具有相关性状变异的群体的系统发生（进化历史）和使用生物学知情模型。该提案将通过测试由进化理论产生的预测来调查这些问题，重点是蜜罐蚂蚁（Myrmecocystus）。这些蚂蚁出现在北美西部的干旱地区，特别值得注意的是它们的觅食时间范围很广（有些只在沙漠最热的时候觅食，而另一些只在晚上觅食，如果白天在巢外，就会很快死亡）。蚂蚁的进化史将通过多个基因推断出来。将测量样本的特征，如腿长和眼睛大小，这些特征可能对蚂蚁的生态和行为产生重大影响。其他关于生态、行为和地理范围的信息将从文献、收集的信息和个人观察中汇编。在需要的地方，新的性格进化模型将被开发出来，并在免费的、开源的、用户友好的计算机程序中实现，以便其他科学家也可以使用它们。这棵树、特征信息和模型将用于检验假设，并对这一群体的进化做出推论。需要验证的假设包括：关于觅食时间变化导致的形态特征变化的方向和速度的预测、物种形成后范围扩张导致的生态特征位移、觅食时间之间的相对过渡率以及物种形成事件的地理位置。除了获得关于Myrmecocystus进化生物学的见解外，该项目还将把各种生物信息归档到一个可访问的网络数据库中，并提供教程，以便其他人可以使用免费的工具（如MySQL和PERL）创建类似的网站。在这个方向上的初步努力（http://www.brianomeara.info/myrmecocystus）已经导致发布使用关系数据库和PERL动态生成的交互式二分键。对于Myrmecocystus的每个物种，现在都有一个动态网页，其中包括GenBank中该物种的可用序列信息，其他在线信息的链接，以及项目数据库中关于该物种的信息（例如适合PCR的引物对或该物种可以找到的地方）。这使得其他科学家可以从这个项目中学习有效的技术，因为它们被发现了。将编写并发布将纸质密钥转换为在线密钥、生成动态物种页面以及使用关系数据库管理诸如此类的研究项目的源代码和说明。

Understanding the interplay of morphological and behavioral evolution with speciation and biogeographic differentiation remains one of the main tasks of biology. This requires well-supported phylogenies (evolutionary histories) of groups with relevant character variation and the use of biologically-informed models. This proposal will investigate such questions by testing predictions generated from evolutionary theory, focusing on honeypot ants (Myrmecocystus). These ants occur in arid regions of western North America and are especially noteworthy for their wide range of foraging times (some forage only in the heat of the desert day, while others will only forage at night, perishing quickly if outside the nest at daytime). The ants' evolutionary history will be inferred using multiple genes. Specimens will be measured for traits, such as leg length and eye size, which may have a major effect on the ants' ecology and behavior. Other information on ecology, behavior, and geographic range will be compiled from the literature, information in collections, and personal observation. Where needed, new models for character evolution will be developed and implemented in free, open-source, user-friendly computer programs so that other scientists may also use them. The tree, character information, and models will be used to test hypotheses and make inferences about evolution in this group. Hypotheses to test include predictions regarding the direction and rate of morphological character shifts as a result of changes in foraging time, ecological character displacement following range expansion after speciation, relative transition rates between foraging times, and the geography of speciation events. In addition to obtaining insights about the evolutionary biology of Myrmecocystus, this project will archive a variety of biological information in a web-accessible database and provide tutorials so that others can create similar websites using freely available tools such as MySQL and PERL. Preliminary efforts in this direction ( http://www.brianomeara.info/myrmecocystus ) have led to posting of interactive dichotomous keys generated on the fly using a relational database and PERL. For each species in Myrmecocystus a dynamic web page is now available that includes information on sequences available for that species in GenBank, links to other online information, and information about that species (such as suitable primer pairs for PCR or where the species can be found) returned from the project database. This allows other scientists to learn effective techniques from this project as they are discovered. Source code and instructions for converting paper keys to online keys, generating dynamic species pages, and using a relational database to manage a research project such as this will be written and posted.