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

0301937 Baraloto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为期3至24个月的研究。该项目的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，并提供了使用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和实验条件的机会。该奖项将支持克里斯托弗·巴拉洛托博士与达米安·博纳尔博士在法属圭亚那库鲁的国家农业研究所合作的为期24个月的研究奖学金。该项目将与一名社区生态学家(PI)和一名经验丰富的法属圭亚那热带雨林生态学家(东道主)一起研究热带雨林树木五个属内和之间的幼苗功能形态。该项目包括两个部分：一是特性筛选操作，以检查苗木生态和生态生理特性之间的关系；二是对当地类群进行人口统计调查，以检查功能形态和苗木招募之间的关系。该项目是对热带雨林研究的两大贡献。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最早方法之一。其次，该项目是第一个将生态生理参数的受控实验数据与野外条件下的表现联系起来的项目之一。这些优势代表了热带森林生态学取得重大进展的潜力。五年多来，博纳尔一直在法属圭亚那进行类似的性状筛选，该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.