Project description:Currently, research on the impact of fertilizers on natural enemies, particularly spiders, is extremely limited. Most existing studies focus on field population dynamics and community structure, with scarce reporting on underlying mechanisms. This project, titled "Study on the Effects and Mechanisms of Urea on Predation Behavior of Farmland Spiders," integrates multidisciplinary theories and employs a combined approach of field investigations and laboratory experiments. It aims to Reveal the predatory strategies of dominant spider populations under chronic urea stress in agricultural ecosystems; to analyze the effects and mechanisms of chronic urea stress on predation-related metabolic, detoxification, and neuromodulation functions in dominant spider species from biological, physiological, cytomorphological, and multi-omics perspectives; to elucidate the comprehensive regulatory role and mechanisms of spider gut microbiota in mediating predation function responses to urea stress.Collectively, this research will clarify the impact and mechanisms of urea on the predation function of farmland spiders, providing a theoretical foundation and practical support for optimizing urea application in agricultural production and achieving the optimal comprehensive effects on spider predation services.
Project description:A mutualistic relationship between reef-building corals and endosymbiotic algae (Symbiodinium spp.) forms the basis for the existence of coral reefs. Genotyping tools for Symbiodinium spp. have added a new level of complexity to studies concerning cnidarian growth, nutrient acquisition, and stress. For example, the response of the coral holobiont to thermal stress is connected to the host-Symbiodinium genotypic combination, as different partnerships can have different bleaching susceptibilities. If, and to what extent, differences in algal symbiont clade contents can exert effects on the coral host transcriptome is currently unknown. In this study, we monitored algal physiological parameters and profiled the coral host transcriptional responses in acclimated, thermally stressed, and recovered coral fragments using a custom cDNA gene expression microarray. Combining these analyses with results from algal and host genotyping revealed a striking symbiont effect on both the acclimated coral host transcriptome and the magnitude of the thermal stress response. This is the first study that links coral host transcriptomic patterns to the clade content of their algal symbiont community. Our data provide a critical step to elucidating the molecular basis of the apparent variability seen among different coral-algal partnerships.