NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology

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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.