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.

昆虫是物种丰富度最高的后生动物（metazoan）类群之一。它们在绝大多数非海洋生态系统中发挥关键作用，且众多昆虫类群具备极高的经济与医学价值。解析昆虫的演化历程，对于理解陆地与淡水生境中的生命演化规律至关重要。1KITE（1K Insect Transcriptome Evolution）项目旨在对涵盖所有已确认昆虫目级类群的1000种昆虫的转录组（transcriptome）进行研究，转录组即所有表达基因的总和。针对每一种昆虫，研究人员将借助下一代测序技术（NGS）生成所谓的表达序列标签（Expressed Sequence Tags）。该项目预期产生的数据，将首次助力研究人员构建出稳健的昆虫系统发育框架树。此外，该项目还将开发用于数据质量评估与分析的新型软件工具。