COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Phylogenetic and phytochemical cascades in the evolution of tropical diversity

合作研究：热带多样性演化中的系统发育和植物化学级联

• 批准号: 1146119
• 负责人: James Whitfield
• 金额: $ 21.35万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-02-01 至 2016-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1146119&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: COLLABORATIVE; RESEARCH; Phylogenetic; phytochemical; cascades; COLLABORATIVE; RESEARCH; Phylogenetic; phytochemical; cascades

A central goal of modern biology is to understand the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. In particular, understanding the enormous diversity of tropical communities has been a serious challenge. The research group addresses this challenge by using a well-studied tropical system composed of plants, specialist caterpillars feeding exclusively on this group of plants, and a group of specialist wasps that attack the caterpillars. The diversity within each of these groups is enormous (2,000 species), and the goal for this project is to better understand the evolution of biodiversity by testing specific hypotheses addressing patterns of plant chemical evolution and the role of plant chemistry in biodiversity. To address these hypotheses, the collaborative group consists of two synthetic chemists to elucidate the plant chemistry, one molecular ecologist to reconstruct the evolutionary history of each group, three taxonomists to describe and identify organisms, and two chemical ecologists to describe the interaction between each group. The hypothesis that the evolution of one organismal group (i.e. plants) can affect the evolution of another interacting group (i.e. caterpillars) is not a new idea; however, the approach to address this hypothesis is novel, as they focus on multiple feeding groups (plants, caterpillars, wasps), which has rarely been undertaken. In addition, the diverse collaborative team allows the team to thoroughly explore all aspects of this system to yield high explanatory power for the question addressed. Finally, understanding the evolution of biodiversity will help with conservation efforts to maintain species rich ecosystems so that the interactions that give structure to ecosystems remain intact.

现代生物学的一个核心目标是了解生物多样性的起源和维护。特别是，了解热带社区的巨大多样性是一个严重的挑战。研究小组通过使用一个由植物组成的良好的热带系统，专家毛毛虫组成的热带系统，专门以这组植物为食，以及一组攻击毛毛虫的专家黄蜂。这些群体中的每个群体的多样性都是巨大的（2,000种），该项目的目标是通过测试特定的假设来更好地了解生物多样性的演变，以解决植物化学进化的模式以及植物化学在生物多样性中的作用。为了解决这些假设，协作小组由两名合成化学家组成，以阐明植物化学，一位分子生态学家重建每个组的进化史，三名分类学家描述和识别生物体，以及两名化学生态学家，以描述每组之间的相互作用。 一个生物群（即植物）的演变可以影响另一个相互作用群体（即毛毛虫）的演变的假设不是一个新想法。但是，解决这一假设的方法是新颖的，因为它们专注于多个喂养组（植物，毛毛虫，黄蜂），这很少进行。此外，多样化的合作团队允许该团队彻底探索该系统的所有方面，从而为所解决的问题产生高解释性的能力。最后，了解生物多样性的演变将有助于保护富含物种的生态系统，以使生态系统结构的相互作用保持完整。