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.

该奖项的全部或部分资金来源于《2021 年美国救援计划法案》（公法 117-2）。昆虫吃植物既是自然界的一个基本过程，也是农业中的一个主要问题，导致农作物损失和成本高昂。植物通过产生对昆虫有毒的天然化学物质来保护自己，但昆虫有很多方法来克服这些毒素，除了昆虫自身的能力外，最近的证据表明，昆虫肠道中存在细菌。可以帮助分解植物毒素 这种情况发生的时间和方式，以及它对昆虫造成的植物损害的总体贡献，人们知之甚少。这项研究的目的是确定哪些细菌可以分解两个常见作物家族（番茄家族）的毒素。和卷心菜家族）并测量这些细菌在多大程度上帮助昆虫吃掉这些植物，了解昆虫消除植物毒素的不同方式将有助于我们设计更有效、有针对性的昆虫控制策略，最终可以减少作物损失并减少对广泛昆虫的需求。光谱该项目还将为西班牙裔服务机构的本科生提供实践研究经验，课堂上总共有 120 名学生，实验室有 30 名学生。学生将饲养昆虫，用不同的细菌感染它们，并测量它们。昆虫健康和植物消费的影响，并在公共和科学场所展示其结果，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。这项研究的首要目标是预测。的大小通过肠道微生物群为昆虫提供解毒帮助，验证了宿主植物通才比专家更能从微生物促进中受益的假设，利用以茄科和十字花科植物为食的甲虫、蚱蜢和毛毛虫，该研究将：（1）确定昆虫的丰度。研究人员将通过 16S 扩增子测序来表征野生昆虫肠道微生物群中的化感化学降解细菌，并同时分离活体昆虫。这些细菌降解化感物质的能力将通过基于培养的测定来测量（2）测量体内微生物解毒的程度。研究人员将给通才和昆虫专家接种毒素降解或非毒素降解的疫苗。 - 降解分离物并允许昆虫以植物为食，将测量昆虫粪便中分泌的化感化学物质的浓度，以确定发生了多少微生物降解。肠道微生物促进对昆虫健康和植物消耗的影响研究人员将在其宿主植物上饲养多种昆虫，并接种能够或不降解植物主要毒素之一的分离物。这项工作将量化肠道微生物群在昆虫食草动物中的总体重要性或缺乏程度，并启动对肠道微生物群在昆虫中的作用的长期研究。植物-昆虫化学军备竞赛，这一过程产生了地球上的大部分陆地生物多样性。该奖项由综合有机系统司的共生、感染和免疫计划以及生物系统司的人口和社区生态计划共同资助环境生物学。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。