Collaborative Research: Causes and consequences of intraspecific variation in developmental plasticity: growth, size and instar number in Manduca sexta

了解发育过程是如何进化的是进化生物学面临的一个根本挑战。烟草天牛Manduca sexta是美国东南部烟草和番茄的一种主要农业害虫，是研究昆虫生长发育和变态的重要模式系统，其实验室菌落已经维持了40多年。最近的研究表明，在野外种群中，六纹夜蛾幼虫阶段(龄期)的数量具有惊人的遗传变异和发育可塑性。这项拟议的研究将研究导致幼虫龄数变化的营养和发育机制，并记录幼虫龄数对毛虫生长和取食、成虫大小和雌性繁殖力(卵数)的影响。该项目将记录自然界中昆虫种群的发育变异是如何保持的，以及发育变异如何影响这种重要农业害虫的取食、生长和适合性。该项目将包括对北卡罗来纳大学和杜克大学生物学本科生和研究生的培训，以及对高中教师的培训。

Understanding how developmental processes evolve is a fundamental challenge for evolutionary biology. The Tobacco Hornworm, Manduca sexta, a major agricultural pest of tobacco and tomato in the Southeast US, is an important model system for understanding the growth, development and metamorphosis of insects, and laboratory colonies of M. sexta have been maintained for over 40 years. Recent studies have revealed surprising genetic variation and developmental plasticity in the number of larval stages (instars) in field populations of M. sexta. The proposed research will study the nutritional and developmental mechanisms that cause variation in instar number, and document the consequences of instar number for caterpillar growth and feeding, adult size, and female fecundity (number of eggs). This project will document how variation in development is maintained within insect populations in nature, and how developmental variation influences feeding, growth and fitness of this important agricultural pest. This project will include the training of undergraduate and graduate students in Biology at the University of North Carolina and Duke University as well training high school teachers.