Unraveling the evolutionary dynamics of high symbiont diversity in the fungus-farming ant genus Apterostigma: A phylogenomic approach

揭示真菌养殖蚂蚁属Apterostigma高共生生物多样性的进化动力学：一种系统发育学方法

• 批准号: 1456964
• 负责人: Christian Rabeling
• 金额: $ 75.53万
• 依托单位: University of Rochester
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-04-01 至 2017-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1456964&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Unraveling; evolutionary; dynamics; symbiont; diversity

The best known fungus-farming ants are the leaf-cutting ants of the genera Atta and Acromyrmex, which are the dominant plant harvesting animals of the New World tropics. These ants use plant leaf cuttings in order to cultivate a single, recently evolved fungal species, which they then eat. However, a more poorly known group of fungus-farming ants in the genus Apterostigma, cultivate a greater diversity of fungal species than all other fungus-farming ants combined. Closely related species of Apterostigma cultivate closely related groups of fungi, but major shifts to distantly related fungal groups have occurred multiple times during 40 million years of co-evolution between Apterostigma ants and fungus. This research aims to better understand the co-evolution of leaf-cutting ants and the fungi they cultivate. This includes developing new knowledge about the numbers, diversity and distribution of Apterostigma ant species and their associated fungi, as well as determining the evolutionary relationships among both ants and fungi. Questions to be addressed include: Why do leaf-cutting ants in the genus Apterostigma cultivate a greater diversity of fungal species than all other fungus-farming ants (leaf-cutting and non-leaf-cutting) combined? Why do some Apterostigma ant species cultivate only a few fungi that are closely related to each other, while others cultivate diverse fungi that are only distant relatives? The results from this research may benefit society in general because fungus-farming ants provide a rare non-human model system for the emerging fields of Darwinian agriculture and Darwinian medicine, which aim to improve human agriculture and disease management through the study of analogous natural systems. Recently several antibiotics and antimalarial quinones have been isolated and described from fungi and bacterial species living in association with leaf-cutting ants, making their biology particularly relevant to issues of health. Further, some fungi associated with leaf-cutting ants have become models for more efficient biofuel production.This research will proceed by comprehensive field collecting of ants and fungi from nests throughout their distributions in nature, and documenting the presence or absence of co-speciation patterns in Apterostigma ants and their fungal cultivars, by comparing phylogenetic analyses based on genomic data for both ants and fungi. The researchers will employ targeted enrichment of Ultra-Conserved genetic Elements (UCEs) to infer the species-level phylogenies. These phylogenies will be used in testing hypotheses of co-evolution and fungal species fidelity and mobility among host ant species over time. The genomic UCE data will also be used to resolve species boundaries (identify species) among poorly known species-complexes of Apterostigma ants. This is essential for reconstructing species-specific ant-fungus co-evolutionary interactions as well as for revising ant taxonomy and producing pictorial identification keys to various ant species.

最著名的真菌养殖蚂蚁是Atta属和Acromyrmex属的叶片切割蚂蚁，它们是新世界热带地区的主要植物收获动物。这些蚂蚁使用植物叶片，以种植一种最近进化的真菌物种，然后食用。 然而，与所有其他结合的真菌养殖蚂蚁相比，在焦点属属中，一群更鲜为人知的真菌养殖蚂蚁培养了更大的真菌物种。紧密相关的斑点物种培养了与真菌的密切相关的群体，但是在4000万年的焦旋蚂蚁和真菌之间的共同进化中，已经多次向遥远相关的真菌组发生了重大转变。这项研究旨在更好地了解切叶蚂蚁及其种植的真菌的共同进化。这包括发展有关焦点蚂蚁物种及其相关真菌的数量，多样性和分布的新知识，以及确定蚂蚁和真菌之间的进化关系。待解决的问题包括：为什么与所有其他真菌养殖蚂蚁（叶片切割和非叶片切割）组合在一起，为什么将叶片叶片割叶培养出更大的真菌种类？为什么某些胃静态蚂蚁物种仅培养几种彼此紧密相关的真菌，而另一些则培养了只有遥远亲属的多种真菌？这项研究的结果通常会使社会受益，因为真菌农场蚂蚁为达尔文农业和达尔文医学的新兴领域提供了罕见的非人类模型系统，该系统旨在通过研究类似的自然系统来改善人类农业和疾病管理。最近，已经分离出几种抗生素和抗菌奎因酮，并从与叶叶蚂蚁相关的真菌和细菌物种中分离出来，使其生物学与健康问题特别相关。此外，一些与切叶蚂蚁相关的真菌已成为更有效的生物燃料生产的模型。这项研究将通过在自然界的整个分布中全面地收集蚂蚁和真菌的全面现场收集蚂蚁和真菌，并记录或不存在apterostigma蚂蚁及其真菌群体中的共同分析模式，以对基于基于基因组的养育数据进行比较。 研究人员将采用超保存的遗传元件（UCE）的靶向富集来推断物种水平的系统发育。这些系统发育将用于测试随着时间的推移，宿主蚂蚁物种之间共同进化和真菌物种保真度和活动性的假设。基因组UCE数据还将用于解析垂体蚂蚁的众所周知的物种复合物之间的物种边界（识别物种）。这对于重建特定物种的蚂蚁 - 脉冲共同进化相互作用以及修改蚂蚁分类法和生成各种蚂蚁物种的绘画识别键。

项目成果

The dacetine ant Strumigenys arizonica, an apparent obligate commensal of the fungus-growing ant Trachymyrmex arizonensis in southwestern North America

• DOI: 10.1007/s00040-018-0625-8
• 发表时间: 2018-08-01
• 期刊: INSECTES SOCIAUX
• 影响因子: 1.3
• 作者: Gray, K. W.;Cover, S. P.;Rabeling, C.
• 通讯作者: Rabeling, C.

Nuevos registros de hormigas Myrmicinae (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) para Colombia

哥伦比亚 Nuevos registros de hormigas Myrmicinae（膜翅目，蚁科）

• DOI: 10.25100/socolen.v44i2.7115
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Revista Colombiana de Entomología
• 作者: Guerrero, Roberto Jose;Fernández, Fernando;Escárraga, Mayron E.;Pérez-Pedraza, Lina;Serna, Francisco;Mackay, William P.;Sandoval, Vivian;Vergara, Valentina;Suárez, Diana;García, Emira I.
• 通讯作者: García, Emira I.

Natural history and nest architecture of the fungus-farming ant genus Sericomyrmex (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

真菌养殖蚂蚁属 Sericomyrmex（膜翅目：蚁科）的自然历史和巢穴结构

• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Myrmecological news
• 影响因子: 4.1
• 作者: Jesovnik, Ana;Chaul, Julio;Schultz, Ted R.
• 通讯作者: Schultz, Ted R.

Biogeography of mutualistic fungi cultivated by leafcutter ants

切叶蚁培育的共生真菌的生物地理学

• DOI: 10.1111/mec.14431
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: Molecular Ecology
• 影响因子: 4.9
• 作者: Mueller, Ulrich G.;Ishak, Heather D.;Bruschi, Sofia M.;Smith, Chad C.;Herman, Jacob J.;Solomon, Scott E.;Mikheyev, Alexander S.;Rabeling, Christian;Scott, Jarrod J.;Cooper, Michael
• 通讯作者: Cooper, Michael

Biology of the relict fungus-farming ant Apterostigma megacephala Lattke, including descriptions of the male, gyne, and larva

孑遗真菌养殖蚂蚁 Apterostigma megacephala Lattke 的生物学，包括雄性、雌性和幼虫的描述

• DOI: 10.1007/s00040-017-0550-2
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: Insectes Sociaux
• 影响因子: 1.3
• 作者: Sosa-Calvo, J.;Ješovnik, A.;Lopes, C. T.;Rodrigues, A.;Rabeling, C.;Bacci, M.;Vasconcelos, H. L.;Schultz, T. R.
• 通讯作者: Schultz, T. R.