Dimensions: Animal-microbial interactions as an engine of phyletic and functional diversity: insights from interactions between drosophilids and their resident microbiota

动物及其共生细菌之间的合作关系对全球多样性做出了重要贡献，但我们对分类多样性（物种数量等）与功能多样性（生物做什么）之间的关系的理解仍然存在重大差距。在本项目中，多样性的遗传测量将用于量化果蝇及其近缘种细菌群落的分类和功能多样性。一个世纪以来对果蝇的基因研究使这些物种成为一个特别适合的研究系统。该项目将使用几种蝇类，包括一种以水果和蘑菇为食的新兴农业害虫，来研究细菌的分类和功能是如何相互耦合的，以及如何与果蝇的功能多样性耦合的。这些相互作用对果蝇利用和破坏果实的能力、它们之间的竞争相互作用以及它们对寄生虫的抗性的影响也将被研究。该研究还将使用基因组方法来获得对动物-细菌相互作用如何形成动物及其微生物群的分类和功能多样性的综合理解。该项目将为两名博士后、研究生和本科生提供生物多样性科学方面的研究教育，并将通过在罗切斯特博物馆和科学中心举行的“科学周六”会议（包括讲座和实践演示）向公众传播。康奈尔大学将举办一场摄影展，向公众展示动物与微生物之间关系的美丽、复杂和多样性。这两个互补的倡议都计划举办巡回展览，以更广泛地传播生物多样性的重要性。本项目研究的昆虫包括一种入侵害虫——斑翼果蝇。研究人员将通过会议、通讯文章和对当地媒体的采访来加强正在进行的推广活动，以描述这项研究的发现如何有助于减轻这种昆虫对作物生产和食品质量的损害。

The cooperative relations between animals and their symbiotic bacteria make a crucial contribution to global diversity, but there remains a major gap in our understanding of how the taxonomic diversity (number of species etc.) relates to its functional diversity (what organisms do). In this project, genetic measures of diversity will be applied to quantify the taxonomic and functional diversity of bacterial communities in fruit flies and their relatives. A century's worth of genetic research on fruit flies makes these species a particularly amenable study system. This project will use several fly species, including an emerging agricultural pest that feeds on fruit and mushrooms, to investigate how taxonomy and function of the bacteria are coupled both to each other and to the functional diversity of the flies. The impact of these interactions on the capacity of the flies to utilize and damage fruits, their competitive interactions, and their resistance to parasites, will also be investigated. The research will also use genomic methods to obtain an integrated understanding of how animal-bacterial interactions shape the taxonomic and functional diversity of both the animal and its microbiota.This project will provide research education in biodiversity science for two postdoctoral associates and graduate and undergraduate students, and will be communicated to the general public by Science Saturday meetings, including talks and hands-on demonstrations, at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. A photographic exhibition communicating the beauty, complexity and diversity of animal-microbial associations will be organized at Cornell University for the general public. Both these complementary initiatives have plans for traveling exhibitions, for wider dissemination of the importance of biodiversity. The insects studied in this project include an invasive pest, the spotted-wing drosophila. The researchers will enhance ongoing extension activity via meetings, newsletter articles, and interviews with local media to describe how the findings of this research may help to mitigate the damage of this insect to crop production and food quality.