OPUS: Geographical gradients and contemporary end points of organic evolution

OPUS奖励基金以前支持NSF的科学家重新评估几年来的项目，并将它们综合成一种产品，以刺激研究界。这个项目将综合PI四十年来对猪笼草蚊子进化生态学的实验研究，这是一个理解疾病媒介气候驱动进化的模型系统。这项工作将包括第一个证据，表明最近快速气候变化的影响已经渗透到基因水平。这些数据不仅解释了在周围世界观察到的季节性事件时间的持续变化，而且还有助于指导对一些地球上一些最令人衰弱的疾病：疟疾、登革热、黄热病和西尼罗河病毒的宿主/媒介相互作用模式变化的新研究。这项综合研究将侧重于蚊子在特定环境中发挥作用的生理能力如何决定它们是否可以传播疾病。该实验室的工作对考察地理变异和当地适应的研究产生了重大影响，这一综合很可能扩大这种影响。这本书的主题将展示，随着时间的推移，随着新的挑战的出现，对特定有机体的良好了解是发展发现和变革性研究的骨干的关键。来自生物地理学、季节时序、生理学、种群生物学、进化遗传学和基因组学的综合结果将编织到每一章中，并由描述自然领域和受控实验室环境中的模式和过程的在线视频加以突出。这个项目将为这种科学方法提供一个独特的视角，将对研究生和职业生涯早期的研究人员起到启发和教育作用。

OPUS awards fund previously supported NSF scientists to re-evaluate several years of projects and synthesize them into a product to stimulate the research community. This project will synthesize the PIs' forty years of experimental studies on the evolutionary ecology of the pitcher plant mosquito, a model system for understanding climate-driven evolution of a disease vector. This work will include the first evidence that the effects of recent rapid climate change have penetrated to the level of the gene. These data explain not only ongoing changes observed in the timing of seasonal events in the surrounding world, but also help direct new research into shifting patterns of host/vector interactions of some of Earth's most debilitating diseases: malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and West Nile virus. The synthesis will focus on how the physiological capacity of mosquitos to function within a given environment determines whether or not they can transmit disease. This laboratories' work has had a major impact on research examining geographic variation and local adaptation and this synthesis ls likely to expand that influence. The themes of the book will demonstrate how knowing a specific organism well is key to developing the backbone for discovery and transformational research as new challenges emerge over time. The combined results from biogeography, seasonal timing, physiology, population biology, evolutionary genetics, and genomics will be woven into each chapter, punctuated by an on-line video describing pattern and process in both natural field and controlled laboratory environments. This project will provide a unique perspective on this approach to science that will serve as inspiration and education for graduate students and early-career researchers.