Phylogenomics to advance understanding of world mosquito diversity and vector ecology

该项目扩大了对世界蚊子遗传相互关系和生物多样性的认识。通过比较基因和基因组，可以更深入地了解蚊子的基本生物学，它们携带或抵抗疾病传播的能力，以及它们对环境因素的反应，这些因素会影响它们在家庭和自然条件下对人类和动物种群的影响。该项目扩大了整个蚊子群体的基因组采样，特别关注世界各地采样的多种但尚未研究的物种。该项目将进一步发展提供物种鉴定的交互式数据系统、物种比较和鉴定的比较框架，以及关于蚊子基因、生物学、病原体和地理分布信息的交互式数据存档和检索系统。该项目将在美国院校培训众多研究生和本科生，并通过博物馆展览、专业发展研讨会和课堂工具包与K-12教师和学生建立联系。此外，该项目将通过公民科学努力让公众参与到科学研究的过程中来。将对博物馆储存库中的蚊子标本和野外采集的样本进行基因组取样。锚定富集过程将用于产生基因组数据，以确定单系谱系，并建立从特定到家庭水平的所有高等culicids分类群内部和之间的关系。该项目将对包含跨越生态边界的分类群的蚊子枝进行全面的系统发育抽样估计，以解决有关驯化的进化问题，以及伴随的栖息地和宿主的变化，这些变化似乎推动了主要疾病媒介的进化。最后，该项目将进一步扩展现有物种和病原体生物多样性数据库（VectorMap）的开发，包括一个具有数据功能的交互式世界蚊子系统发育，为蚊子生态学、进化、物种相互作用和分类鉴定的进化研究提供一个背景化的界面。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project expands knowledge of genetic interrelationships and biological diversity in world mosquitoes. Comparison of genes and genomes allows greater insight into the basic biology of mosquitoes, their capacity to carry or resist disease transmission, and their response to environmental factors that affect their impact on human and animal populations in domestic and natural conditions. The project expands genomic sampling for mosquitoes broadly throughout the group, with special focus on diverse, but as yet unstudied, species sampled worldwide. The project will further the development of interactive data systems that provide species identification, a comparative framework for species comparison and identification, and an interactive data archive and retrieval system for information on mosquito genes, biology, pathogens, and geographic distributions. The project will train numerous graduate and undergraduate students in US institutions and connect with K-12 teachers and students through museum exhibits, professional development workshops, and classroom kits. Additionally, the project will engage the public in the process of doing science through citizen science efforts. Genomic sampling will be carried out from mosquito specimens held in museum repositories and from field collected samples. Anchored enrichment processes will be used to generate genomic data to identify monophyletic lineages and establish relationships within and among all higher culicid taxa, from specific to family level. The project will use comprehensively sampled phylogenetic estimates for mosquito clades that contain taxa that have crossed ecological boundaries to address evolutionary questions about domestication, and accompanying habitat- and host-shifts that appear to drive the evolution of major disease vectors. Lastly, the project will further expand the development of an existing species and pathogen biodiversity database (VectorMap), to include a data-enabled, interactive phylogeny of World mosquitoes that provides a contextualized interface for evolutionary studies of mosquito ecology, evolution, species interactions and taxonomic identification.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.