Collaborative Research: PurSUiT: A Backbone for the Peracarida

Peracarids are an extremely large and diverse group of crustacean animals that are found everywhere on Earth, from deserts to the deepest ocean trenches. The most familiar peracarids are the terrestrial isopods, commonly known as roly polies, that are frequently found under rocks or plant pots. There are deep sea and freshwater versions of roly polies. They come in the most amazing body shapes and sizes - peracarids do just about everything except fly. Despite being found everywhere, very little is known about the relationships within Peracarida, limiting understanding of how the group came to be so species-rich and variable. The central goal of this project is to resolve the relationships within Peracarida. At least 30 undergraduate students, three graduate students, and a postdoctoral researcher will be trained in molecular laboratory techniques, bioinformatics, peracarid taxonomy, identification and description of new species, data management, and career development. Three workshops will be held to train 31 graduate students and early career professionals in peracarid systematics, collection, identification, preservation, bioinformatics, and data management. Project outreach will include social media, outreach to schools in diverse districts (Anchorage, Los Angeles, and western Alabama), museum exhibits, and bilingual (Spanish/English) outreach in traditional broadcast media and a short documentary film. The central goal of this project is to provide a robust phylogenetic framework for Peracarida based on broad taxon sampling. Currently, no such framework exists, which impedes research into important questions raised by the extreme diversity displayed across peracarid morphology, ecology, systematics and life history. The project will use a target capture phylogenomic approach with probe design informed by three new genomes and 50 new transcriptomes, as well as publicly available transcriptomes and genomes. Biodiversity across the order will be assessed using an integrative taxonomic approach combining DNA barcoding of COI, 16S and 18S and traditional morphological approaches. Beyond the immediate scope of the current proposal, this work is expected to catalyze research across Peracarida by providing a phylogenetic framework and a comprehensive set of phylogenomic tools specialized for Peracarida. This project is jointly funded by the Division of Environmental Biology and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). 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.