Collaborative Research: Litter Arthropods of High Appalachia

阿巴拉契亚山脉是许多动物物种的家园，在地球上其他地方找不到，包括许多新的节肢动物物种（昆虫，千足虫和亲戚），等待发现和描述。最高的阿巴拉契亚山脉（5000英尺）拥有更新世时期的云杉冷杉林。这些独特的群落受到入侵物种和栖息地丧失的威胁。然而，缺乏关于本地物种多样性的信息阻碍了它们的保护。该项目是克莱姆森大学和弗吉尼亚理工大学之间的合作，将填补这些独特森林中节肢动物的巨大生物多样性知识空白，并将与负责保护的联邦和州土地管理人员分享这些信息。该项目团队将与学生学员一起访问这些云冷杉“岛屿”中的每一个，以调查节肢动物，然后将使用基因组工具制作该物种的生物文库。这些工具将允许快速识别数百种不同的物种，比较将揭示每座山的居民的独特性，以及他们的进化历史。研究小组由研究生和本科生、博士后学员和高级人员组成，将共同致力于该项目的数据收集和分析、出版和推广阶段。公共活动，如与该地区的州立和国家公园举办的讲座和讲习班以及短视频，将与尽可能广泛的受众分享该项目的活动和成果。 该项目的具体目标是：（1）评估阿巴拉契亚山脉南部22个最高点的多样性;（2）建立一种高通量测序方法，以有效地记录落叶节肢动物;（3）评估特有物种和神秘物种多样性的规模和地理范围;（4）提高对高海拔动物多样性和独特性的认识，强调保护高海拔动物的紧迫性。一个基于凭证的元条形码工作流程，利用COI和16 S扩增子，将被用作社区之间比较的基础。这将为许多新的分类群建立条形码序列数据库，并为解决物种边界和种群关系提供丰富的数据集。数据分析将采用系统发育，人口遗传学和其他统计方法来解决进化关系，历史连接和多样性的环境决定因素的问题。预期成果包括数十个新发现的物种，数千个尚未在公共数据库中出现的物种的条形码序列，以及对一个具有高保护价值的地区的大量多样性的地理历史的深刻理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

Appalachian peaks are home to many animal species found nowhere else on Earth, including many new species of arthropods (insects, millipedes, and relatives) that await discovery and description. The highest Appalachian mountains (5000 feet) harbor spruce-fir forests that are relicts of Pleistocene times. These unique communities are threatened by invasive species and habitat loss. However, a lack of information about native species diversity hinders their conservation. This project, a collaboration between Clemson University and Virginia Tech, will fill in large biodiversity knowledge gaps for the arthropods in these unique forests, and will share this information with federal and state land managers responsible for conservation. The project team, with student trainees, will visit each of these spruce-fir 'islands' to survey the arthropods, and will then make a biological library of the species using genomic tools. These tools will allow rapid identification of the hundreds of distinct species, and comparison will reveal the uniqueness of each mountain's inhabitants, as well as their evolutionary histories. The research team, composed of graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral trainees and senior personnel, will work together on data collection and analysis, publishing, and outreach phases of the project. Public events such as lectures and workshops with state and national parks in the region and short videos will share the activities and findings of the project with the widest possible audience. The specific goals of the project are to: (1) assess diversity at 22 of the highest points in the southern Appalachian Mountains; (2) establish a high throughput sequencing approach to efficiently document leaf litter arthropods; (3) assess the magnitude and geographic scale of endemism and cryptic species diversity; and (4) increase appreciation for the diversity and uniqueness of high elevation faunas, and highlight the urgency to protect them. A voucher-based metabarcoding workflow, utilizing COI and 16S amplicons, will be used as the basis for comparison among communities. This will establish a database of barcode sequences for many novel taxa and yield a rich data set for resolving species boundaries and population relationships. Data analyses will employ phylogenetic, population genetic, and other statistical methods to address questions of evolutionary relationships, historical connectivity and environmental determinants of diversity. Anticipated results include dozens of newly discovered species, thousands of barcode sequences for species as-yet-unrepresented in public databases, and a deep understanding of biogeographic histories for a great swath of diversity across an area of high conservation value.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.