NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology

这一行动为2008财政年度美国国家科学基金会生物学博士后研究奖学金提供资金。他的研究和培训计划题为热带森林的系统发育多样性和周转：辨别生态、地理和进化过程的作用。 赞助科学家是哈佛热带森林科学中心的斯图尔特·詹姆斯·戴维斯博士？群落生态学的一个日益发展的范式是通过研究物种的进化历史可以获得前所未有的见解，了解群落中生物多样性是如何产生和维持的。 虽然基于遗传学的社区分析的数量正在扩大，目前缺乏的是一个广泛的系统发育多样性和营业额跨多个物种丰富的社区广泛的综合分析。 此外，为开展此类研究开发的信息学工具很少。 拟议的研究是填补这一空白，通过开发新的系统发育分析工具，并通过整合系统发育假说与一个大型热带树木社区的数据set.The研究计划还提供了一个机会，学习新的技能和开发一套新的分析技术，拓宽研究员？的范围内的科学调查使用新的综合分析工具，以完善的理解如何这么多的物种可以共存的社区。 更广泛的科学影响将在生态学和进化生物学方面。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2008 to Dr. Nathan G. Swenson whose research and training plan is entitled Phylogenetic diversity and turnover in tropical forests: discerning the role of ecological, biogeographic and evolutionary processes. The sponsoring scientist is Dr. Stuart James Davies at the Center for Tropical Forest Science at Harvard?s Arnold Arboretum.A growing paradigm in community ecology is that through studying the evolutionary history of species unprecedented insights can be gained into how biodiversity in communities is generated and maintained. Although the number of phylogenetically-based analyses of communities is expanding, currently lacking is an extensive broad-scale integrative analysis of phylogenetic diversity and turnover across multiple species rich communities. Further, few informatics tools have been developed to carry out such research. The proposed research is filling this gap by developing novel phylogenetic analytical tools and by integrating phylogenetic hypotheses with a large tropical tree community data set.The research program also provides an opportunity to learn new skills and develop a novel set of analytical techniques that broaden the Fellow?s range of scientific enquiry using novel integrative analytical tools in order to refine an understanding of how so many species can co-exist in communities. The broader scientific impact will be in both ecology and evolutionary biology.