MSB: Experimental Coevolutionary Genetics of the Attine Ant-Microbe Symbiosis

某些蚂蚁将真菌作为它们的主要食物来源。蚂蚁收集蔬菜基质并将其运输到一个“花园”，通常是一个在地下挖掘的避难室，然后在这个新的基质上种植真菌。种植真菌的蚂蚁花园是蚂蚁群落内相互作用的焦点，培养的真菌和大量不同的额外微生物。具体地说，攻击蚂蚁或真菌花园的病原体可以导致蚁穴群落的死亡，但各种辅助微生物有助于控制这些病原体的疾病抑制特性。对病原体的抗病能力是由蚂蚁和真菌的遗传特性以及这两个主要群落成员与辅助微生物的相互作用形成的。这项研究将阐明这些巢群落成员如何相互作用和共同进化以响应病原体的存在。为了了解疾病动态，这项研究将(A)表征从母蚁到子代蚂蚁巢穴的辅助微生物组合的遗传特征；(B)确定蚂蚁-真菌-微生物组合的共同遗传对群落抗病的重要性；以及(C)评估蚂蚁、真菌和辅助微生物对抗病的相对贡献。这项研究在生态遗传学和数量遗传学的框架内整合了各种实验方法，有助于生态学和进化生物学的统一。辅助微生物的世代遗传发生在包括人类在内的不同宿主中，但辅助微生物群落在促进宿主健康方面的重要性尚不完全清楚。这项研究开发了新的实验方法来阐明辅助微生物群落在疾病抑制中的作用。由于微生物群落还赋予人类(例如，人类皮肤或肠道的微生物群)和农作物(例如，根的微生物群)抗病能力，因此对真菌蚂蚁的这项研究将有助于理解微生物的一般原理，并将其应用于人类和农业疾病管理。种植真菌的蚂蚁及其微生物也将被用来促进对学生和公众的教育，使他们了解生态、进化和所有生物过程的重要性。一名博士后研究员和多名本科生将在该研究项目中接受培训和指导。

Certain ants cultivate fungi as their major food source. The ants collect and transport vegetable substrate to a "garden," usually a sheltered chamber excavated in the ground, then plant fungus on this new substrate. Gardens of fungus-growing ants are foci of interactions within a community of ants, the cultivated fungus, and a great diversity of additional microbes. Specifically, pathogens attacking the ants or the fungal gardens can cause the death of the nest community, but a variety of auxiliary microbes contribute disease-suppressing properties that control such pathogens. Disease resistance to pathogens is shaped by the genetic identity of both the ant and the fungus and the interaction of these two dominant community members with the auxiliary microbes. This research will elucidate how these nest community members interact and co-evolve in response to pathogen presence. To understand disease dynamics, the research will (a) characterize the inheritance of assemblages of auxiliary microbes from maternal to offspring ant nest; (b) determine the importance of co-inheritance of ant-fungus-microbe combinations to disease resistance of the community; and (c) evaluate the relative contribution to disease-resistance by ant, fungus, and auxiliary microbes. The research integrates a variety of experimental approaches within an ecological-genetics and quantitative-genetics framework, contributing towards a unification of ecology and evolutionary biology.Inheritance of auxiliary microbes between generations occurs in diverse hosts, including humans, but the importance of communities of auxiliary microbes in their contribution to the health of a host is incompletely understood. This research develops novel experimental approaches to elucidate the role of auxiliary microbe communities in disease suppression. Because microbial communities also confer disease resistance for humans (e.g., the microbiome of human skin or gut) and for crops (e.g., the microbiome of roots), this research on fungus-growing ants will contribute to the understanding of general microbial principles with applications to human and agricultural disease management. Fungus-growing ants and their microbes will also be used to promote education of students and the public on the importance of ecological, evolutionary, and all biological processes. A postdoctoral researcher and multiple undergraduates will be trained and mentored in this research project.