International Research Fellowship Program: Defining Functional Groups Among French Guianan Rain Forest Trees Using Phylogenetically-independent Contrasts

0301937巴拉罗托国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行三到二十四个月的研究。 该计划的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，以及使用国外独特或互补的设施，专业知识和实验条件。 该奖项将资助Christopher Baraloto博士与Damien Bonal博士在法属圭亚那库鲁的国家农业研究所进行为期24个月的研究。该项目将与社区生态学家（PI）和法属圭亚那（东道主）经验丰富的热带森林生态生理学家一起研究五种热带雨林树木的幼苗功能形态。 该项目包括两个组成部分：性状筛选操作，以检查幼苗生态和生态生理性状之间的关联;以及对当地分类群的人口统计调查，以检查功能形态和幼苗补充之间的关联。 该项目是对热带森林研究的两项重大贡献。 首先，它是将系统发育关系纳入热带树木功能生态学研究的第一种方法之一。 第二，该项目是第一个将生态生理参数的受控实验数据与实地条件下的性能联系起来的项目。 这些优势代表了热带森林生态学取得重大进展的潜力。Bonal博士在法属圭亚那进行类似性状筛选已有五年多的时间，本项目将建立在这项研究的基础上。

0301937BaralotoThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Christopher Baraloto to work with Dr. Damien Bonal at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Kourou, French Guiana.This project will join a community ecologist (the PI) with an experienced tropical forest ecophysiologist in French Guiana (the host) to examine seedling functional morphology within and among five genera of tropical rain forest trees. The project involves two components: a trait screening manipulation to examine associations between seedling ecological and ecophysiological traits; and a demographic survey of the local taxa to examine associations between functional morphology and seedling recruitment. The project represents two major contributions to the study of tropical forests. First, it is one of the first approaches to incorporate phylogenetic relationships into the study of tropical tree functional ecology. Second, the project is one of the first to link data from controlled experiments of ecophysiological parameters with performance under field conditions. These strengths represent the potential for a major advancement in tropical forest ecology.Dr. Bonal has been conducting similar trait screening in French Guiana for more than five years, and this project will build on this research.