RAPID:Impact of unpredictable population-wide disturbances on evolutionary processes -- honey bees in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria

风暴等大规模、不可预测的干扰可能会改变环境，消除或在进化上改变动植物的生命，具有潜在的长期影响。该项目的目标是了解觅食和攻击性行为在决定波多黎各蜜蜂飓风存活率方面的作用。非洲化的蜜蜂在20世纪50年代入侵波多黎各，S最初创造了高度攻击性的种群，就像在其他地方发生的那样。自引入以来，波多黎各的非洲化蜜蜂独特地随着时间的推移变得不那么咄咄逼人，丰富的飓风前遗传和行为数据证明了这一点。这个项目解决了这样的假设，即风暴，如2017年9月20日袭击波多黎各的飓风玛丽亚，选择了更具攻击性的蜂群，有利于在觅食和囤积食物方面投入更多资金的蜜蜂。研究人员将通过对飓风后剩余人口进行抽样，并将它们与飓风前的数据进行比较，来检验这一假设。快速资金将提供机会，在风暴过后的几个月内研究幸存者及其后代的遗传和行为特征。研究人口在重大环境和人为干扰后的反应，对于理解形成自然和农业生态系统的过程具有重要意义。该项目还将支持波多黎各学生在一个被飓风严重破坏的实验室保持研究效率。来自飓风玛丽亚后野生种群和家养种群的蜜蜂的基因组将被测序和分析，以通过将它们与飓风前的基因型进行比较来确定选择的特征或遗传瓶颈。基因组中的多态标记将用于在更大的地理区域(如波多黎各)测试更大数量(1500个)的样本，以检查进化趋势和过程。对飓风前后、野生蜜蜂和驯化蜜蜂种群的遗传学、基因组学和行为进行比较，将检验飓风等大干扰或人为影响在减少非洲化蜜蜂攻击行为方面的作用的假设。揭开随机和选择性过程对蜜蜂基因组的影响，可能会确定环境干扰在集群生物攻击性行为进化中的新的和一般的作用。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Large-scale, unpredictable disturbances such as storms can alter the environment, eliminating or evolutionarily changing plant and animal life, with potentially long-lasting effects. The goal of this project is to understand the role of foraging and aggressive behavior in determining hurricane survival in the honey bees of Puerto Rico. Africanized bees invaded Puerto Rico in the 1950's, initially creating highly aggressive populations as has occurred elsewhere. Since their introduction, the Africanized bees of Puerto Rico have uniquely become less aggressive over time, as evidenced by a wealth of pre-hurricane genetic and behavioral data. This project addresses the hypothesis that storms, such as Hurricane Maria that hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, select against more aggressive colonies and favor bees that invest more in foraging and food hoarding. The researchers will test this hypothesis by sampling the remaining post-hurricane populations and comparing them with the pre-hurricane data. RAPID funding will provide the opportunity to study both genetic and behavioral traits of survivors and their offspring within the months immediately following the storm. The study of a population's response subsequent to major environmental and anthropogenic disturbances is of importance to the understanding of processes that shape natural and agricultural ecosystems. This project will also support Puerto Rican students to maintain research productivity in a lab severely damaged by the hurricane. The genomes of bees from post-Hurricane Maria wild populations and domestic populations will be sequenced and analyzed to determine signatures of selection or genetic bottleneck by comparing them with pre-hurricane genotypes. Polymorphic markers across the genome will be used to test a larger number (1500) of specimens over a greater geographic area (i.e. Puerto Rico) to examine evolutionary trends and processes. Comparisons of genetics, genomics and behavior of pre- and post-hurricane, feral and domesticated populations will test hypotheses on role of large disturbances such as hurricanes or anthropogenic influences on reducing aggressive behavior in Africanized honey bees. Untangling the effects of chance and selective processes on honey bee genomes may identify a novel and general role of environmental disturbance in the evolution of aggressive behavior in colonial organisms.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.