| 项目编号: | 1501711
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| 项目名称: | Dissertation Research: Endogenic Microbial Community Structure and its Influence on Community Assembly and Speciation in Squamate Reptiles |
| 作者: | Brice Noonan
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| 承担单位: | University of Mississippi
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| 批准年: | 2014
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| 开始日期: | 2015-06-01
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| 结束日期: | 2018-05-31
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| 资助金额: | USD18419
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| 资助来源: | US-NSF
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| 项目类别: | Standard Grant
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| 国家: | US
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| 语种: | 英语
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| 特色学科分类: | Biological Sciences - Environmental Biology
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| 英文关键词: | bacterial community
; microbial community
; host
; host community
; project
; squamate reptile
; host assembly process
; speciation rate
; ebc
; reptile
; hands-on research experience
; evolutionary history
|
| 英文摘要: | The goal of the project is to understand how communities of species are structured and whether bacterial communities living inside vertebrates might influence how new vertebrate species evolve. The project employs a novel approach to investigating these questions by exploring the evolutionary histories of both the bacteria found in the gut of reptiles and the evolutionary history of the reptile hosts. By utilizing novel technologies the project will reveal the extent to which bacterial communities living inside vertebrates are structured by the ecology of the host (e.g. what the host eats, where they live) or the evolutionary histories of the host (e.g. how they are related to other species). Additionally, this project will test whether the presence of certain bacterial groups helps drive diversification/speciation by creating greater opportunity for the host (e.g. help with digesting new foods, live in new areas). Data will be collected from a wide range of reptiles spanning five countries and three continents. Bacteria are some of the oldest forms of life and have interacted with multicellular life for nearly a billion years. This will be the first study to characterize the gut bacterial communities of such a diverse vertebrate group, and provide a synthetic test of evolution in vertebrate hosts and the bacterial communities existing inside them. The study will incorporate volunteers and students from Mississippi and the developing nations of Brazil, Ethiopia, Guyana and Mexico. Undergraduate students and high school teachers in Mississippi will get hands-on research experience and instruction on identifying local amphibians and reptiles. Local scouts and undergraduates in Ethiopia will gain valuable training that will advance their education and provide them with marketable skills they can then apply to their careers as field biologists.
This study aims to explore how the vertebrate endogenic microbiome (EM) influences the process of diversification and to what extent these microbial communities affect assembly of host communities. Squamate reptiles (snakes, lizards) present an ideal system for such study as they are well sampled phylogenetically, possess a wide range of ecological traits, and show less dispersal and fragmentation than other vertebrate groups. Using high-throughput next generation sequencing, endogenic bacterial communities (EBCs) for all major lineages of Squamata in addition to outgroup reptilian lineages will be characterized (alpha and beta diversity) to obtain fundamental information on the EM of Reptilia. Key predictions include: (i) EBCs are phylogenetically conserved within Squamata, (ii) only lineages that possess the appropriate EBC will be able to exploit certain niches, (iii) certain EBCs facilitate accelerated speciation rates of the host, (iv) EBCs are ecological traits that can be used to characterize host ecology and directly influence the host assembly process by limiting exploitable niche space. |
| 资源类型: | 项目
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| 标识符: | http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/94485
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| Appears in Collections: | 影响、适应和脆弱性
气候减缓与适应
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| Recommended Citation: | |
Brice Noonan. Dissertation Research: Endogenic Microbial Community Structure and its Influence on Community Assembly and Speciation in Squamate Reptiles. 2014-01-01.
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