CAREER: Evolutionary Community Ecology in Plethodon Salamanders

职业：无腹蝾螈的进化群落生态学

• 批准号: 0446758
• 负责人: Dean Adams
• 金额: $ 50.09万
• 依托单位: Iowa State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-03-01 至 2011-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0446758&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Evolutionary; Community; Ecology; Plethodon

This work supports an integrated research and education effort that aims to 1) better understand how communities of organisms are organized from both an ecological and evolutionary perspective, and 2) train undergraduate and graduate students in quantitative methods used to examine morphological variation in communities and methods for assessing community organization. The major research goals of this project are to understand the organization of ecological communities, the importance of species interactions in those communities, and to examine the evolutionary consequences of species interactions on morphological traits in Plethodon salamanders. The education component focuses on better integration of research in education, through several mechanisms: 1) ongoing research projects provide data examples for educational exercises in the classroom to help to establish ties between research and education, 2) undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students will be directly involved in laboratory research, 3) further development and participation in an educational exchange will strengthen the connections between a major R-1 institution and an undergraduate college, 4) continued training of visiting faculty and students in my laboratory during mini-sabbaticals, 5) educational outreach through teaching at International Geometric Morphometrics Workshops. Finally, hosting a Geometric Morphometrics Workshop at Iowa State University will provide US researchers in-depth training in these approaches.

这项工作支持综合研究和教育工作，其目的是1)从生态和进化的角度更好地了解生物群落是如何组织的，2)培训本科生和研究生使用定量方法来检查群落的形态变化，以及评估群落组织的方法。该项目的主要研究目标是了解生态群落的组织，物种相互作用在这些群落中的重要性，并研究物种相互作用对蜥蜴形态特征的进化影响。教育部分侧重于更好地整合教育研究，通过几个机制：1)正在进行的研究项目为课堂上的教育练习提供数据范例，帮助建立研究与教育之间的联系；2)本科生、研究生和博士后将直接参与实验室研究；3)进一步发展和参与教育交流将加强主要R-1院校与本科学院之间的联系；4)在小长假期间继续培训我实验室的访问教员和学生；5)通过在国际几何形态测量学研讨会上的教学进行教育推广。最后，在爱荷华州立大学举办几何形态测量学研讨会将为美国研究人员提供这些方法的深入培训。