Secrets to a Successful Hunt: Integrating Genomes, Chemistry and Behaviour in Neotropical Solitary Wasps

与更受欢迎的近亲蜜蜂和黄蜂相比，针叶黄蜂的研究还很少，但它们的生物多样性比蜜蜂和黄蜂的总和还要多。对于独居黄蜂来说尤其如此，它们占所有针叶黄蜂物种的90%以上，在生态和生活史上表现出显著的多样性，特别是在它们的狩猎行为上。独居黄蜂也是群居黄蜂、蜜蜂和蚂蚁的祖先；尽管在过去的十年里，社会基因组学对我们理解昆虫的社会进化做出了重大贡献，但我们缺乏独居黄蜂的基因组资源--独居黄蜂是社会进化的关键“起点”。作为节肢动物种群的顶级捕食者，独居黄蜂还提供重要的、但在很大程度上被忽视的生态系统服务，这使得它们成为维持生物多样性平衡的关键。独居黄蜂也是猎物专家，因此与(多面手)群居黄蜂不同：它们为研究狩猎进化中的基因组感觉机制提供了尚未开发的潜力。唯一可用的非群居黄蜂基因组是寄生宝石黄蜂，它不是有刺的(刺痛的黄蜂)，表现出非常特殊的生活史；我们缺乏任何独居(非寄生)狩猎黄蜂的基因组序列。巴西黄蜂的生物多样性是无与伦比的，尽管巴西有强大的黄蜂研究遗产，但巴西昆虫的基因组资源基本上是缺乏的，巴西昆虫学家很难获得最先进的基因组工具。该项目将产生必要的基本基因组工具和培训，以启动这些生物多样性昆虫的进化和生态重要性的新研究领域，为英国和巴西(BR)研究人员之间的长期合作项目提供种子。我们的合作团队将把最先进的基因组和生物信息学技术(英国合作伙伴)与自然历史和感觉生态学的专业知识(BR合作伙伴)相结合，以开发巴西独居黄蜂无与伦比的生物多样性，并使BR科学家成为尚未开发的独居黄蜂基因组学领域的先驱。在这样做的过程中，我们将为独居的黄蜂产生第一个基因组序列。这项提议还迈出了利用这些基因组资源的第一步，以解决昆虫生态学中的一个悬而未决的问题：捕食者-猎物进化的基因组基础是什么？通过将英国合作伙伴的基因组专业知识与BR合作伙伴的生态和化学专业知识相结合，该项目将催生一个由BR&UK科学家国际团队领导的新研究领域。这家英国合作伙伴将培训巴西人使用关键的分析工具，以确定独居黄蜂专业狩猎行为的分子基础，包括基因组注释和比较基因组学方法。有了高质量的染色体水平的基因组，我们将共同进行与化学感知气味结合受体和嗅觉受体相关的基因进化分析，并确定基因组过程如何整合到猎物专一性的进化中。最后，除了产生这些基本资源和培训巴西研究人员使用基因组方法外，该项目还将为BR和英国科学家之间的长期合作提供一个概念性和经验性的跳板，使我们成为孤立的东北热带黄蜂分子研究的先驱。

Aculeate wasps are understudied relative to their more popular cousins, bees and wasps, and yet are more biodiverse than bees and wasps combined. This is particularly so for the solitary wasps, who represent over 90% of all aculeate wasp species and exhibit remarkable diversity in their ecology and life-history, especially in their hunting behaviours. Solitary wasps are also the ancestors of social wasps, bees and ants; despite the significant contributions over the last decade of sociogenomics to our understanding of social evolution in insects, we lack genomic resources for solitary wasps - the critical 'starting blocks' of social evolution. Solitary wasps also provide important, but largely overlooked, ecosystem services as top predators of arthropod populations making them key to maintaining equilibrium in biodiversity. Solitary wasps are also prey-specialists and so fill a different niche to the (generalist) social wasps: they provide untapped potential to study genomic sensory mechanisms in the evolution of hunting. The only non-social wasp genome available is for the parasitic jewel wasp, which is not an Aculeate (stinging wasp) and exhibits very specialised life history; we lack any genome sequences of solitary (non-parasitic) hunting wasps. The biodiversity of wasps in Brazil is unrivalled and although there is a strong legacy of wasp research in Brazil, genomic resources for Brazilian insects are largely lacking, and Brazilian entomologists have poor access to state-of-the-art genomic tools. This project will generate the essential fundamental genomic tools and training to kick-start new fields of study in the evolutionary and ecological importance of these biodiverse insects, seeding long-term collaborative projects between UK and Brazilian (BR) researchers. Our collaborative team will integrate state-of-the-art genomic and bioinformatic techniques (UK partner) with expertise in natural history and sensory ecology (BR partners) to exploit the unrivalled biodiversity of Brazilian solitary wasps and position BR scientists as pioneers in the untapped field of solitary wasp genomics. In doing so, we will generate the first genome sequences for solitary wasps. This proposal also takes the first steps in utilising these genomic resources to address an outstanding question in insect ecology: what is the genomic basis of predator-prey evolution? By integrating genomic expertise of the UK partner with the ecological and chemical expertise of the BR partners, this project will spawn a new area of research, led by international teams of BR & UK scientists. The UK partner will train Brazilians in the critical analytical tools required to determine the molecular basis of specialist hunting behaviours in solitary wasps, including genome annotations and comparative genomics methods. With high-quality, chromo-some-level genomes in hand, we will together conduct gene evolution analyses of genes associated with chemical perception - odorant binding receptors and olfactory receptors, and determine how genomic processes have been integrated in the evolution of prey specificity. Finally, in addition to generating these essential resources, and training Brazilian researchers into genomic methods, this project will provide a conceptual and empirical springboard of a long-term collaborations between BR & UK scientists, placing us as pioneers in the molecular studies of solitary neotropical wasps.