COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Phylogenetic and phytochemical cascades in the evolution of tropical diversity

现代生物学的一个中心目标是了解生物多样性的起源和维持。特别是，了解热带群落的巨大多样性一直是一项严峻的挑战。研究小组通过使用一个经过充分研究的热带系统来解决这一挑战，该系统由植物、专门以这种植物为食的专业毛毛虫和一群专门攻击毛毛虫的黄蜂组成。这些群体中的多样性是巨大的（2000种），这个项目的目标是通过测试解决植物化学进化模式和植物化学在生物多样性中的作用的特定假设来更好地理解生物多样性的进化。为了解决这些假设，合作小组由两名合成化学家组成，以阐明植物化学，一名分子生态学家重建每个类群的进化史，三名分类学家描述和识别生物，两名化学生态学家描述每个类群之间的相互作用。一个生物群体（如植物）的进化可以影响另一个相互作用的群体（如毛毛虫）的进化，这一假设并不是一个新想法；然而，解决这一假设的方法是新颖的，因为他们关注的是多种喂养群体（植物，毛毛虫，黄蜂），这很少被采取。此外，多样化的协作团队允许团队彻底探索该系统的各个方面，从而对所处理的问题产生高解释力。最后，了解生物多样性的进化将有助于保护工作，以保持物种丰富的生态系统，使生态系统结构的相互作用保持完整。

A central goal of modern biology is to understand the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. In particular, understanding the enormous diversity of tropical communities has been a serious challenge. The research group addresses this challenge by using a well-studied tropical system composed of plants, specialist caterpillars feeding exclusively on this group of plants, and a group of specialist wasps that attack the caterpillars. The diversity within each of these groups is enormous (2,000 species), and the goal for this project is to better understand the evolution of biodiversity by testing specific hypotheses addressing patterns of plant chemical evolution and the role of plant chemistry in biodiversity. To address these hypotheses, the collaborative group consists of two synthetic chemists to elucidate the plant chemistry, one molecular ecologist to reconstruct the evolutionary history of each group, three taxonomists to describe and identify organisms, and two chemical ecologists to describe the interaction between each group. The hypothesis that the evolution of one organismal group (i.e. plants) can affect the evolution of another interacting group (i.e. caterpillars) is not a new idea; however, the approach to address this hypothesis is novel, as they focus on multiple feeding groups (plants, caterpillars, wasps), which has rarely been undertaken. In addition, the diverse collaborative team allows the team to thoroughly explore all aspects of this system to yield high explanatory power for the question addressed. Finally, understanding the evolution of biodiversity will help with conservation efforts to maintain species rich ecosystems so that the interactions that give structure to ecosystems remain intact.