CAREER: Prevalence, magnitude, and importance of gut microbial detoxification services in insect herbivory

职业：食草昆虫肠道微生物解毒服务的普遍性、程度和重要性

• 批准号: 2146512
• 负责人: Alison Ravenscraft
• 金额: $ 89.46万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Arlington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-02-15 至 2027-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2146512&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Prevalence; magnitude; importance; gut

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Insects eat plants. This is both a basic process in nature and a major problem in agriculture, resulting in crop losses and costly pesticide treatments. Plants defend themselves by producing natural chemicals that are toxic to insects, but insects have many ways to overcome these toxins. In addition to insects’ own abilities, which are well studied, recent evidence suggests that bacteria living in the insect gut can help to break down plant toxins. When and how this happens, and its overall contribution to plant damage by insects, are poorly understood. The goal of this research is to identify which bacteria break down toxins from two common crop families (the tomato family and the cabbage family) and measure how much these bacteria help insects eat these plants. Understanding the different ways insects disable plant toxins will help us design more effective, targeted insect control strategies. Ultimately this could reduce crop losses and lessen the need for broad-spectrum pesticides. This project will also provide hands-on research experience for undergraduates at a Hispanic-serving institution, reaching a total of 120 students in the classroom and 30 students in the laboratory. Students will rear insects, infect them with different bacteria, measure the effects on the insects’ health and plant consumption, and present their results in public and scientific venues. This will train both future members of our society and the next generation of STEM researchers in scientific thinking.The overarching goal of this research is to predict the magnitude of detoxification assistance provided to insects by their gut microbiota, testing the hypothesis that host plant generalists will benefit more from microbial facilitation than specialists. Using beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars feeding on Solanaceous and Brassicaceous plants, this research will: (1) Determine the abundance of allelochemical-degrading bacteria within wild insects’ gut microbiota. Researchers will characterize gut microbial composition via 16S amplicon sequencing and simultaneously isolate live gut bacteria from the same insect individuals. The ability of these bacteria to degrade allelochemicals will be measured via culture-based assays. (2) Measure the magnitude of microbial detoxification in vivo. Researchers will inoculate generalist and specialist insects with toxin-degrading or non-degrading isolates and allow the insects to feed on plants. Concentrations of allelochemicals excreted in insect frass will be measured to determine how much microbial degradation occurred. (3) Quantify the impact of gut microbial facilitation on insect fitness and plant consumption. Generalist and specialist insects will be reared on their host plants, inoculated with an isolate that does or does not degrade one of the plant’s major toxins. Researchers will compare the insects’ growth rate, development time to adulthood, survival, and total leaf area consumed. This work will quantify the overall importance – or lack thereof – of gut microbiota in insect herbivory and launch a career-long investigation of the role of gut microbiota in the plant-insect chemical arms race, a process that has generated much of Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity.This award was jointly funded by the Symbiosis, Infection and Immunity Program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems and by the Population and Community Ecology Program in the Division of Environmental Biology.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.

该奖项是根据2021年《美国救援计划法》（公法117-2）全部或部分资助的。这既是本质上的基本过程，也是同意的主要问题，导致农作物损失和昂贵的农药治疗。植物通过产生对昆虫有毒的天然化学物质来捍卫自己，但昆虫有许多方法来克服这些毒素。除了昆虫的能力良好之外，最近的证据还表明，生活在绝缘肠中的细菌还可以帮助分解植物毒素。何时以及如何发生这种情况及其对隔热材料对植物损害的总体贡献，对植物损害的理解很少。这项研究的目的是确定哪些细菌分解了两个常见的农作物家族（番茄家族和卷心菜家族）的毒素，并测量这些细菌有助于隔热这些植物。了解昆虫禁用植物毒素的不同方式将有助于我们设计更有效，有针对性的绝缘控制策略。最终，这可以减少农作物的损失，并减少对广谱农药的需求。该项目还将在西班牙裔服务机构为大学生提供动手研究经验，在课堂上总共有120名学生和实验室的30名学生。学生将恢复绝缘材料，并用不同的细菌感染它们，测量对隔热材料的健康和植物消耗的影响，并在公共和科学场所呈现结果。这将培训我们社会的未来成员和下一代STEM研究人员的科学思维。这项研究的总体目标是预测其肠道微生物群向昆虫提供的排毒援助的幅度，检验了寄主植物性植物史密斯将从微生物设施中受益的假设，而不是专家。这项研究将使用甲虫，蚱h和毛毛虫以供甲层和黄铜植物供应的毛毛虫，将：（1）确定野生昆虫肠道微生物群体中的化合物化学降解细菌的丰度。研究人员将通过16S扩增子测序表征肠道微生物组成，并轻松地与同一绝缘个体分离活细菌。这些细菌降解化学化学物质的能力将通过基于培养的分析来测量。 （2）测量体内微生物排毒的大小。研究人员将使用毒素降解或不缩减分离株接种通才和专业昆虫，并允许昆虫以植物为食。将测量超过昆虫菌丝的浓度，以确定发生了多少微生物降解。 （3）量化肠道微生物设施对昆虫健身和植物消耗的影响。通才和专业昆虫将在其寄主植物上饲养，该植物接种了一种分离株或研究人员将比较昆虫的生长速度，成年期的发育时间，生存时间，以及消耗的总叶子面积。 This work will quantify the overall importance – or lack there – of gut microbiota in insect herbivory and launch a career-long investigation of the role of gut microbiota in the plant-insect chemical arms race, a process that has generated much of Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity.This award was jointly funded by the Symbiosis, Infection and Immunity Program in the Division of Integrative Organismatic Systems and by the Population and Community Ecology Program in the Division of环境生物学。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准来评估，被认为是宝贵的支持。