Ecology and Evolution of Cooperative Fungiculture in Beetles

甲虫合作真菌培养的生态学和进化

• 批准号: 322563882
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Peter Biedermann
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Professur für Forstentomologie und Waldschutz
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Independent Junior Research Groups
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/322563882?language=en
• 关键词: Ecology; Evolution; Cooperative; Fungiculture; Beetles

Cooperation is ubiquitous in nature and its evolution has challenged generations of evolutionary biologists. Today many principles of social evolution are widely accepted, but major issues remain unsolved. For example, the strongest approach in evolutionary biology, namely experimental evolution of a trait, has not been accomplished for social behaviour in animals. Likewise, while the ecological factors that select for intraspecific sociality are relatively well known, it is unclear if there are specific factors that consistently facilitate the evolution of interspecific mutualisms. Bark- and ambrosia beetle species are excellent models to address these questions. The reason is that many of these species grow fungi for food - a trait which has independently evolved at least ten times in this group. Most interestingly, the evolution of this fungiculture was always accompanied by the evolution of more complex social organization. Thus, many farming species are at the transition from a sub-social to a eusocial lifestyle, which is quite rare in animals. I have developed an artificial rearing and observation technique, suitable for many bark- and ambrosia beetle species, which now allows me to directly test how certain ecological conditions affect the evolution of social behaviours and the mutualism with fungi. Additionally, we can learn a lot on the mechanisms of animal farming, which is comparable to human agriculture in many ways.In this Emmy Noether project, I will tackle major unsolved issues in social evolution and mutualism, using ambrosia beetles as a model. My main objectives are to (i) conduct experimental evolution of less and more social beetle strains by selecting on timing of beetle dispersal and manipulating pathogen pressure, (ii) test the effects of the co-selected fungal community on social behaviour and study trade-offs between social behaviour, reproduction, and dispersal, (iii) investigate social polymorphisms and how they are affected by habitat characteristics and symbiont communities, (iv) determine if division of labour in beetles is chemically regulated, (v) examine if beetles can actively control fungus communities, identify the mechanisms of nest defence against pathogens and of induction of the fruiting of the fungi by means of mutualistic bacteria, and (vi) establish a dialogue between researchers working with farming insects and agronomists to compare farming practices from an evolutionary perspective, and stimulate novel research. To achieve all these objectives, my group will apply an interdisciplinary approach, combining selection experiments, experimental assays, and culturing methods with state-of-the-art molecular (e.g. qPCR, next-gen-sequencing) and biochemical (e.g. GC-MS) techniques. Würzburg is the preferred place for this project as this environment unifies tremendous expertise on social insect behaviour, evolution and chemical ecology (including fungus-farming ants), offering excellent collaborations.

合作在自然界中无处不在，它的进化对几代进化生物学家提出了挑战。如今，许多社会进化原理已被广泛接受，但重大问题仍未得到解决，例如，进化生物学中最有力的方法，即性状的实验进化，尚未得到解决。同样，虽然选择种内社会性的生态因素相对众所周知，但尚不清楚是否有特定因素能够持续促进树皮甲虫和豚草甲虫物种的进化。型号原因是这些物种中的许多都以真菌为食——这种特征在这个群体中已经独立进化了至少十次。最有趣的是，这种真菌培养的进化总是伴随着更复杂的社会的进化。因此，许多农业物种正处于从亚社会生活方式向真社会生活方式的转变，这在动物中相当罕见，我开发了一种人工饲养和观察技术，适用于许多树皮甲虫和豚草甲虫物种。让我可以直接测试确定性生态条件影响社会行为的进化以及与真菌的互利共生此外，我们可以学到很多关于动物养殖的机制，这在很多方面与人类农业相当。在这个艾美·诺特项目中，我将解决主要的未解决问题。在社会进化和互利共生中，使用豚草甲虫作为模型，我的主要目标是（i）通过选择甲虫传播的时间和操纵病原体压力来对越来越少的社会性甲虫品系进行实验进化，（ii）测试效果。共同选择的真菌群落的社会行为，并研究社会行为、繁殖和扩散之间的权衡，（iii）研究社会多态性以及它们如何受到栖息地特征和共生群落的影响，（iv）确定劳动分工甲虫中的化学调节，（v）检查甲虫是否可以主动控制真菌群落，确定针对病原体的巢防御机制以及通过共生细菌诱导真菌结果的机制，以及（vi）在从事农业昆虫工作的研究人员和农学家之间建立对话，从进化的角度比较农业实践，并激发新颖的研究为了实现所有这些目标，我的小组将采用跨学科方法，将选择实验、实验分析和培养方法与农业昆虫相结合。维尔茨堡拥有最先进的首选分子（例如 qPCR、下一代测序）和生物化学（例如 GC-MS）技术，因为该环境汇集了社会上的大量专业知识。昆虫行为、进化和化学生态学（包括真菌养殖蚂蚁），提供良好的合作。