Functional, Genomic, and Evolutionary Analysis of Chemical Courtship Signals in Euglossine Bees

地球上大约80%的开花植物表现出对昆虫（主要是蜜蜂）授粉的适应，因此大多数陆地生态系统依赖蜜蜂授粉服务。像大多数昆虫一样，蜜蜂更多地依赖化学信号而不是任何其他感觉方式来定位和识别配偶。了解蜜蜂如何使用化学物质相互交流，以及它们如何检测和编码植物衍生的挥发性化学物质，对于研究和保护有价值的授粉服务至关重要。Euglossine蜜蜂包括一些最重要的热带美洲野生昆虫授粉。雄性Euglossine蜜蜂不产生自己的信息素，而是从植物中收集和积累化合物，随后在求偶展示期间呈现给雌性。雄性收集的化学信号在密切相关的物种之间是不同的，这表明它们在新物种的维持和形成中起着关键作用。本项目研究了Euglossine蜜蜂如何使用化学化合物来定位和识别遗传相容的配偶，并旨在表征化学感觉检测和编码的遗传机制。在经济上重要的蜜蜂物种中，梳理化学信号的进化和功能将有助于我们理解并最终保护这些动物为社会提供的重要功能。大多数昆虫依靠化学信号（化学信息素）来获得关于潜在配偶的位置，身份和质量的精确信息。尽管信息化学物质在昆虫发育中的重要性，但控制信号化学和信号检测的机制仍然知之甚少。此外，鉴于地球上昆虫的巨大多样性和生态优势，昆虫信息素是否介导生殖隔离、物种形成和谱系多样化仍然令人惊讶地未被探索。Euglossine蜜蜂不产生自己的信息素，而是从兰花，真菌和其他资源中收集和积累化合物。本项目旨在（1）描述真舌蜂整个生殖发育过程中的信息化学表型多样性，（2）研究化学感受性状的趋异选择是否以及如何介导生殖隔离，（3）表征真舌蜂相关物种触角中表达的嗅觉受体基因的基因组结构和功能多样性。该研究将整合来自多个学科的不同技术，包括行为生态学，化学生态学，群体遗传学，功能基因组学和神经行为学，以回答有关化学感觉通信的遗传基础，功能和进化的具体问题。

Approximately 80% of flowering plants on Earth exhibit adaptations for pollination by insects, mostly bees, and thus the majority of terrestrial ecosystems depend on bee pollination services. Like most insects, bees rely more on chemical signals than on any other sensory modality to locate and identify mates. Understanding how bees use chemicals to communicate with each other, and how they detect and encode plant-derived volatile chemicals, is critical for studying and protecting valuable pollination services. Euglossine bees include some of the most important wild insect pollinators of tropical America. Male euglossine bees do not produce their own pheromones, but instead gather and accumulate chemical compounds from plants to subsequently present to females during courtship display. Male-gathered chemical signals are divergent among closely related species, suggesting that they play a key role in the maintenance and formation of new species. This project investigates how euglossine bees use chemical compounds to locate and identify genetically compatible mates, and aims to characterize the genetic mechanisms of chemical sensory detection and encoding. Teasing apart the evolution and function of chemical signaling in economically important bee species will help us understand and ultimately preserve the vital functions these animals provide to society. Most insects rely on chemical signals (semiochemicals) to gain precise information on the location, identity, and quality of potential mates. Despite the importance of semiochemicals across the insect phylogeny, the mechanisms that control signal chemistry and signal detection remain poorly understood. Moreover, whether insect semiochemicals mediate reproductive isolation, speciation, and lineage diversification remains surprisingly unexplored given the vast diversity and ecological dominance of insects on Earth. Euglossine bees do not produce their own pheromones, but instead gather and accumulate compounds from orchid flowers, fungi, and other resources. This project aims to (1) describe the diversity of semiochemical phenotypes across the phylogeny of euglossine bees, (2) investigate whether and how divergent selection on chemosensory traits mediates reproductive isolation, and (3) characterize the genomic architecture and functional diversity of olfactory receptor genes expressed in antennae of related species of euglossine bees. The research will integrate diverse techniques from multiple disciplines, including behavioral ecology, chemical ecology, population genetics, functional genomics, and neuroethology to answer specific questions about the genetic basis, function, and evolution of chemosensory communication.