Collaborative Research: Litter Arthropods of High Appalachia

阿巴拉契亚山脉是地球上其他地方找不到的许多动物物种的家园，包括许多有待发现和描述的节肢动物新物种(昆虫、千足类和亲戚)。最高的阿巴拉契亚山脉(5000英尺)是更新世遗留下来的云杉森林的港湾。这些独特的群落受到入侵物种和栖息地丧失的威胁。然而，缺乏关于本土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的合作项目，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一信息。该项目团队将与受训学生一起，访问每一个云杉-冷杉“岛屿”，对节肢动物进行调查，然后使用基因组工具建立该物种的生物库。这些工具将允许快速识别数百个不同的物种，比较将揭示每一座山的居民的独特性以及他们的进化史。研究小组由研究生和本科生、博士后实习生和高级人员组成，将在项目的数据收集和分析、出版和推广阶段共同努力。公共活动，如与该地区的州和国家公园的讲座和研讨会以及短视频，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)建立一个高通量测序方法，有效地记录凋落叶节肢动物；(3)评估特有物种和神秘物种多样性的规模和地理规模；(4)提高对高海拔动物群多样性和独特性的认识，强调保护它们的紧迫性。利用COI和16S扩增的基于代金券的元编码工作流程将被用作社区之间比较的基础。这将建立许多新分类群的条形码序列数据库，并产生用于解决物种边界和种群关系的丰富数据集。数据分析将使用系统发育、种群遗传和其他统计方法来解决进化关系、历史连通性和多样性的环境决定因素等问题。预期的结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，以及对具有高保护价值的地区大片生物多样性的生物地理历史的深入了解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.