U.S.-Australia Planning Visit: Plant and Ecosystem Responses to Global Change

0624762韦伯斯特该奖项支持一次计划访问，使华盛顿州立大学普尔曼分校的迈克尔·韦伯斯特博士能够与昆士兰州凯恩斯的詹姆斯库克大学的布拉德利·康登博士、昆士兰州布里斯班格里菲斯大学的达里尔·琼斯博士和西澳大利亚州德比的澳大利亚野生动物保护协会的萨拉·莱格博士会面。 这次访问将促进澳大利亚细尾鹩莺行为和物种形成的合作计划的发展。这项研究将涉及生殖行为在推动种群和物种形成多样化中的作用。 生殖竞争，导致性选择，被认为是物种形成过程中的一个重要力量，但大多数支持这一关键假设来自广泛的比较研究。 这对鸟类来说尤其如此：性选择被认为在这一群体的多样化和物种形成中起着关键作用，但很少有研究考察交配信号和偏好的地理变异，也没有研究这些是否会在种群中产生生殖隔离。 该项目将通过直接研究交配信号和偏好在一个模型系统中的作用来研究这些问题：澳大利亚细尾鹩莺（Malurus属）。 这次访问将使国际合作者团队能够会面，计划具体的实验，确定研究地点，并收集重要的初步数据。 预计该项目还将为美国研究生提供独特的培训和教育机会，以获得全球研究经验。 预计各国科学家和学生之间的这些合作将导致长期合作，使所有机构受益。

0624762WebsterThis award supports a planning visit to enable Dr. Michael Webster of Washington State University in Pullman to meet with Dr. Bradley Congdon at the James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland and Darryl Jones at Griffith University in Brisbane, Queensland and Sarah Legge at the Australian Wildlife Conservancy in Derby, West Australia. The visit will facilitate development of a collaborative plan on the behavior and speciation of the Australian Fairy-wren.The study will involve the role of reproductive behavior in driving diversification among populations and speciation. Reproductive competition, resulting in sexual selection, is thought to be an important force in the speciation process, but most support for this key hypothesis has come from broad comparative studies. This is particularly true for birds: sexual selection is thought to play a key role in diversification and speciation in this group, yet few studies have examined geographic variation in mating signals and preferences, nor whether these produce reproductive isolation among populations. The project will examine these issues by directly examining the role of mating signals and preferences in a model system: Australian fairy-wrens (genus Malurus). The visit will allow the international team of collaborators to meet to plan specific experiments, identify study sites, and collect important preliminary data. It is also anticipated that this project will provide unique training and educational opportunities for U.S. graduate students to obtain a global research experience. It is anticipated that these collaborations between the scientists and students from each country will lead to long-term collaborations that will benefit all the institutions.