OPUS: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of Desert Drosophila

一个世纪以来，对果蝇的实验室研究对于发现遗传的基本原理至关重要。相比之下，人们对果蝇在自然界的经历知之甚少；拟议的工作将在以仙人掌为食的苍蝇的情况下纠正这个问题。一些果蝇物种适应生活在非常恶劣的沙漠环境中，它们利用腐烂的仙人掌作为觅食和繁殖的场所。研究者已经研究了四种果蝇的生态学、遗传学和行为超过30年。她对这项工作的综合将导致一本书，这本书将提供有关这些昆虫的许多生态学特征的生物学和遗传学的第一个概述。这一合成不仅为适应沙漠的果蝇指明了未来的研究方向，也为其他生物指明了方向。此外，将开发一个关于现有资源和苍蝇种群动态的联机数据库，并以英文和西班牙文提供。该数据库将为一系列生态学家、进化生物学家和教育工作者提供资源。这个合成中心的生物体生活在美国和墨西哥的沙漠中。综合和双语网站不仅将使两国的研究人员和学生能够访问这些果蝇及其资源的长期数据，而且还将导致更多的国际合作研究。此外，该研究人员曾在偏远地区工作，她的经验将被纳入综合报告，这将有助于鼓励其他女性研究人员进行类似的研究。

For a century, laboratory studies of Drosophila fruit flies have been crucial to discovering basic principles of heredity. In contrast, little has been known of what fruit flies experience in nature; the proposed work will rectify that problem in the case of cactus-feeding flies. Some fruit fly species are adapted to living in very harsh desert environments where they exploit decaying cacti as feeding and breeding sites. The investigator has studied the ecology, genetics and behavior of four such Drosophila species for over 30 years. Her synthesis of this work will result in a book that will provide the first overview of the biology and genetics of these insects relative to many features of their ecology. The synthesis is expected to point the way for future research directions not only with desert-adapted Drosophila, but also other organisms. In addition, an on-line database of resource availability and fly population dynamics will be developed and made available in English and Spanish. The database will provide a resource to a range of ecologists, evolutionary biologists and educators. The organisms at the center of this synthesis live in deserts in the United States and Mexico. The synthesis and the bilingual website will not only allow investigators and students from both countries to access the long-term data on these flies and their resources, but will lead to additional international collaborative studies. In addition, the investigator has worked in remote areas and her experiences, which will be incorporated in the synthesis, will serve to encourage other female investigators to pursue similar studies.