Collaborative Research: Ants of the World

合作研究：世界蚂蚁

• 批准号: 2019431
• 负责人: Bonnie Blaimer
• 金额: $ 52.53万
• 依托单位: California Academy of Sciences
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-02-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2019431&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Ants; World

Ants are dominant elements of most terrestrial ecosystems. They have prominent roles in agricultural environments, controlling pests or being pests themselves. Ants in natural habitats comprise a major fraction of the total animal biomass and have important roles as predators, scavengers, and soil movers. Many ant species have hitchhiked into new surroundings with humans, becoming invasive species that can harm both agricultural and natural ecosystems. Ants are also renowned for their complex societies. Because of their overall importance to human interest and welfare, ants are the subjects of scientific research on a wide variety of subjects, including behavior, robotics, immunochemistry, neurobiology, development, community ecology, biology of invasive species, and sociobiology. Knowledge of the evolutionary relationships among ant species (the "ant tree of life") adds great value to ant study findings. Advances in DNA sequencing technology have dramatically accelerated the discovery of evolutionary relationships among plants and vertebrates. Such knowledge is currently incomplete for ants, hampering research progress. The Ants of the World project will provide a comprehensive tree of life and classification of ants. The results will also address basic questions about how life spreads and diversifies across the planet.A powerful new approach for revealing evolutionary relationships among animals uses genome reduction techniques and high-throughput sequencing to obtain thousands of loci called "UltraConserved Elements" (UCEs). Evolutionary trees based on UCEs reliably uncover relationships at all time depths. The Ants of the World project will acquire UCE data for 4,500 ant specimens, increasing the portion of sequenced species to 96% of the 334 genera and about 45% of the 13,500 described species. Specimens will be selected to include nearly all major species groups from all terrestrial biomes. The result will be a comprehensive evolutionary tree of ants delineated to the smallest branch tips. The tree will inform a revision of all generic boundaries and deliver the long-sought goal of a stable generic classification. The tree will also be linked to geography, morphological characters, and climate data, enabling exploration of fundamental evolutionary and ecological processes. The Ants of the World project will also become a major component of Ant Course, a brief but intensive field training program in ant diversity and identification. The Ants of the World project will support three new Ant Courses, in Cameroon, Vietnam, and Australia. A novel component of these courses will be the addition of undergraduate training in science communication: each course will include an undergraduate trainee who will document activities in the field and hone their science communication skills.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.

蚂蚁是大多数陆地生态系统的主要元素。它们在农业环境中发挥着重要作用，控制害虫或本身就是害虫。自然栖息地中的蚂蚁占动物总生物量的主要部分，并且作为捕食者、清道夫和土壤搬运者发挥着重要作用。许多蚂蚁物种已经与人类搭便车进入新的环境，成为可能损害农业和自然生态系统的入侵物种。蚂蚁还以其复杂的社会而闻名。由于它们对人类利益和福利的整体重要性，蚂蚁成为各种学科科学研究的对象，包括行为、机器人学、免疫化学、神经生物学、发育、群落生态学、入侵物种生物学和社会生物学。了解蚂蚁物种之间的进化关系（“蚂蚁生命之树”）为蚂蚁研究结果增添了巨大价值。 DNA 测序技术的进步极大地加速了植物和脊椎动物之间进化关系的发现。目前对于蚂蚁来说，这些知识还不完整，阻碍了研究进展。世界蚂蚁项目将提供全面的生命树和蚂蚁的分类。研究结果还将解决有关生命如何在地球上传播和多样化的基本问题。揭示动物之间进化关系的强大新方法使用基因组缩减技术和高通量测序来获得数千个称为“超保守元素”（UCE）的基因座。基于 UCE 的进化树可靠地揭示了所有时间深度的关系。世界蚂蚁项目将获取 4,500 个蚂蚁标本的 UCE 数据，将已测序物种的比例增加到 334 个属的 96%，以及 13,500 个描述物种的约 45%。选择的样本将包括所有陆地生物群落的几乎所有主要物种组。结果将是一个全面的蚂蚁进化树，描绘了最小的分支尖端。该树将通知所有通用边界的修订，并实现稳定通用分类的长期追求的目标。该树还将与地理、形态特征和气候数据联系起来，从而能够探索基本的进化和生态过程。世界蚂蚁项目也将成为蚂蚁课程的主要组成部分，蚂蚁课程是一个关于蚂蚁多样性和识别的简短但密集的实地培训项目。世界蚂蚁项目将支持喀麦隆、越南和澳大利亚的三个新蚂蚁课程。这些课程的一个新颖组成部分将增加科学传播方面的本科生培训：每门课程都将包括一名本科生学员，他们将记录该领域的活动并磨练他们的科学传播技能。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并被认为是值得的通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来提供支持。

项目成果

Taxonomy in the phylogenomic era: species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships among North American ants of the Crematogaster scutellaris group (Formicidae: Hymenoptera)

系统发育时代的分类学：北美火蚁类（蚁科：膜翅目）的物种边界和系统发育关系

• DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab047
• 发表时间: 2022-03
• 期刊: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
• 影响因子: 2.8
• 作者: Ward, Philip S.;Blaimer, Bonnie B.
• 通讯作者: Blaimer, Bonnie B.

Spatial phylogenomics of acrobat ants in Madagascar—Mountains function as cradles for recent diversity and endemism

马达加斯加杂技蚂蚁的空间系统发育学——山脉是近期多样性和特有现象的摇篮

• DOI: 10.1111/jbi.14107
• 发表时间: 2021-07
• 期刊: Journal of Biogeography
• 影响因子: 3.9
• 作者: Camacho, Gabriela P.;Loss, Ana Carolina;Fisher, Brian L.;Blaimer, Bonnie B.
• 通讯作者: Blaimer, Bonnie B.

UCE Phylogenomics Resolves Major Relationships Among Ectaheteromorph Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ectatomminae, Heteroponerinae): A New Classification For the Subfamilies and the Description of a New Genus

UCE系统基因组学解决了异形蚂蚁（膜翅目：蚁科：Ectatomminae，Heteroponerinae）之间的主要关系：亚科的新分类和新属的描述

• DOI: 10.1093/isd/ixab026
• 发表时间: 2022-01
• 期刊: Insect Systematics and Diversity
• 影响因子: 3.4
• 作者: Camacho, G. P.;Franco, W.;Branstetter, M. G.;Pie, M. R.;Longino, J. T.;Schultz, T. R.;Feitosa, R. M.;Sosa
• 通讯作者: Sosa

A Taxonomic Revision of the Temnothorax graecus Species-Group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Greece

希腊 Temnothorax graecus 物种组（膜翅目：蚁科）的分类学修订

• 发表时间: 2023-03
• 期刊: Annales Zoologici
• 影响因子: 1.1
• 作者: Salata, Sebastian;Środoń, Kacper;Borowiec, Lech
• 通讯作者: Borowiec, Lech

Ants of Brazil: an overview based on 50 years of diversity studies

巴西的蚂蚁：基于 50 年多样性研究的概述

• DOI: 10.1080/14772000.2022.2089268
• 发表时间: 2022-12
• 期刊: Systematics and Biodiversity
• 影响因子: 1.9
• 作者: Feitosa, Rodrigo M.;Camacho, Gabriela P.;Silva, Thiago S.;Ulysséa, Mônica A.;Ladino, Natalia;Oliveira, Aline M.;Albuquerque, Emília Z.;Schmidt, Fernando A.;Ribas, Carla R.;Nogueira, Anselmo;et al
• 通讯作者: et al