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.

最著名的真菌种植蚂蚁是阿塔属和顶切叶蚁属的切叶蚁，它们是新大陆热带地区主要的植物收获动物。这些蚂蚁利用植物叶子的插条来培育一种新近进化的真菌物种，然后将其吃掉。 然而，Apterostigma 属中的一群鲜为人知的真菌养殖蚂蚁，所培育的真菌种类比所有其他真菌养殖蚂蚁的总和还要多。密切相关的 Apterostigma 物种培育出密切相关的真菌类群，但在 Apterostigma 蚂蚁和真菌之间 4000 万年的共同进化过程中，曾多次发生向远缘真菌类群的重大转变。这项研究旨在更好地了解切叶蚁和它们培育的真菌的共同进化。这包括开发有关 Apterostigma 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。需要解决的问题包括：为什么 Apterostigma 属的切叶蚁所培养的真菌种类比所有其他真菌养殖蚂蚁（切叶蚁和非切叶蚁）的总和还要多？为什么一些Apterostigma蚂蚁物种只培育几种彼此密切相关的真菌，而另一些则培育多种只是远亲的真菌？这项研究的结果可能使整个社会受益，因为真菌养殖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，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，从与切叶蚁相关的真菌和细菌物种中分离和描述了几种抗生素和抗疟醌，这使得它们的生物学与健康问题特别相关。此外，一些与切叶蚁相关的真菌已成为更有效生产生物燃料的模型。这项研究将通过对自然界中分布的蚂蚁和真菌的巢穴进行全面的现场采集，并记录共物种模式的存在或不存在来进行。通过比较基于蚂蚁和真菌基因组数据的系统发育分析，研究了 Apterostigma 蚂蚁及其真菌品种。 研究人员将利用超保守遗传元件（UCE）的定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宿主蚂蚁物种之间随着时间的推移共同进化和真菌物种保真度和迁移性的假设。基因组 UCE 数据还将用于解决鲜为人知的 Apterostigma 蚂蚁物种复合体之间的物种边界（识别物种）。这对于重建物种特异性的蚂蚁-真菌共同进化相互作用以及修订蚂蚁分类法和生成各种蚂蚁物种的图形识别键至关重要。

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.

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.

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