Das Projekt "Metabolomics of exploding ants: Is voluntary self-sacrifice a mechanism to defend co-evolved microbiomes?" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, Interuniversitäres Department für Agrarbiotechnologie durchgeführt. The mechanisms by which organisms compete for territory and resources are key processes in ecology. The carpenter ants in the Camponotus (Colobopsis) cylindricus complex ( COCY, or exploding ants) that dominate arboreal habitats in rain forests on Borneo, have evolved a so-far unique and remarkable behaviour: In territorial combat with enemy ants and other arthropods they sacrifice themselves by rupturing (autothysis) and releasing sticky and irritant contents of their hypertrophied mandibular glands to kill rivals. Voluntary self-sacrifice is very rare in nature, undoubtedly due to attendant fitness losses. It is known in termites and honeybees, where effective deployment in defence of the nest may leave self-sacrificing workers with indirect fitness. Contrary to that, workers of COCY ants forage solitarily and explode during one-on-one confrontations far from nests. Thus they are defending the territory against potential competitors probably for continuously renewing food resources such as phyllosphere microbes. The hypothesis of this project is that autothysis of ants far from their nests is a mechanism employed by COCY ants to protect a specific microbiome that co-evolved with them and which they use for nutrition. For this purpose we will study evolution of COCY ants and phyllosphere microbiomes on their foraging grounds. Our project will identify a new and major type of interaction between dominant rainforest insects, their associated microorganisms and plants.
Das Projekt "Novel software tools for improved processing and interpretation of metabolomics data" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, Interuniversitäres Department für Agrarbiotechnologie durchgeführt. In a typical metabolomics experiment huge amounts of raw data are generated. This makes the efficient automated data processing a necessity for state of the art metabolomics workflows. Especially in liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) based metabolomics research, in which the data contain a large extent of noise and background related signals, data processing and visualisation still consist major bottlenecks. of analytical workflows. Within this project, novel algorithms and software tools for improved evaluation of metabolomics data will be developed: The developed tools will be applied to study cereals such as wheat and maize, filamanteous fungi and their biological interaction. The project has three specific goals: 1) Optimisation and integration of software tools for the processing of stable isotope assisted LC-HRMS based metabolomics into a single software suite 2) Development of generic R script(s) for data analysis, visualisation and statistics. These Scripts shall provide templates for various future metabolomics experiments 3) Application and refinement of the developed stable isotope labelling assisted workflows and software algorithms within a functional genomics study. In collaboration with the group of Gerhard Adam we want to identify and characterise polyketide-type secondary metabolites of F. graminearum putatively involved in Fusarium head blight pathogenesis.
