The 1KITE project: evolution of insects

Insects are one of the most species-rich groups of metazoan organisms. They play a pivotal role in most non-marine ecosystems and many insect species are of enormous economical and medical importance. Unraveling the evolution of insects is essential for understanding how life in terrestrial and limnic environments evolved. The 1KITE (1K Insect Transcriptome Evolution) project aims to study the transcriptomes (that is the entirety of expressed genes) of 1,000 insect species encompassing all recognized insect orders. For each species, so-called ESTs (Expressed Sequence Tags) will be produced using next generation sequencing techniques (NGS). The expected data will allow inferring for the first time a robust phylogenetic backbone tree of insects. Furthermore, the project includes the development of new software for data quality assessment and analysis.

昆虫是物种多样性最为丰富的后生动物（metazoan）类群之一。它们在绝大多数非海洋生态系统中发挥着核心作用，且众多昆虫类群具有极高的经济与医学价值。阐明昆虫的演化历程，是理解陆地与淡水生境中生命演化机制的关键前提。1KITE（1K Insect Transcriptome Evolution，1K昆虫转录组演化）计划旨在对覆盖所有已确认昆虫目级类群的1000个昆虫物种的转录组（transcriptome，即表达基因的全集）开展研究。针对每个物种，研究团队将借助下一代测序技术（next generation sequencing，NGS）生成所谓的表达序列标签（Expressed Sequence Tags，ESTs）。该项目的预期数据将首次为构建稳健的昆虫系统发育主干树提供可靠支撑。此外，该计划还将开发用于数据质量评估与分析的新型软件工具。