Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology for FY 2009

本行动资助NSF 2009年度博士后研究奖学金。该奖学金支持Winifred Frick的一项研究和培训计划，题为“应用生物信息学和新型可视化工具来量化大气中蝙蝠的动物扩散和种群动态”。这项研究的主办机构是波士顿大学，赞助科学家是托马斯·昆兹。航空生态学的重点是了解生态功能和生物的重要性，这些生物依赖于其生活史的关键方面的大气。研究大气圈中飞行动物（鸟类、蝙蝠和节肢动物）的行为和运动提出了相当大的挑战，需要创造性地整合数据采集和分析的技术解决方案。遥感工具，如多普勒雷达，为在广泛的空间和时间尺度上研究航空生态过程和动力学提供了很大的希望。本研究将新的三维可视化算法应用于NEXRAD雷达图像的空间明确分析，以模拟巴西无尾蝙蝠的空中动力学，以确定动物的扩散和运动模式。根据热红外成像数据得出的人口普查数据，正在开发体积渲染的三维蝙蝠“云”的校准，以估计空中种群规模，并测试关于气候变化对巴西无尾蝙蝠种群动态影响的生物学假设。通过确定迁徙通道和季节性觅食区域，研究结果有助于保护蝙蝠，这将有助于决定在哪里不设置风能设施，风能设施是迁徙蝙蝠种群的死亡率下沉点。巴西无尾蝙蝠通过消耗数以吨计的棉花和玉米害虫，为生态系统提供了宝贵的服务。研究结果预测了气候变化对农业造成的潜在经济损失，主要是由于一种重要害虫捕食者的生态系统服务价值的丧失。培训目标包括提高遥感、可视化和图像分析、人口建模和地理信息系统方面的定量技能。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for FY 2009. The fellowship supports a research and training plan entitled "Application of bioinformatics and novel visualization tools for quantifiying animal dispersal and population dynamics of bats in the aerosphere" for Winifred Frick. The host institution for this research is Boston University, and the sponsoring scientist is Thomas Kunz. Aeroecology focuses on understanding ecological function and biological importance of organisms that rely on the aerosphere for critical aspects of their life history. Studying behavior and movement of volant animals (birds, bats, and arthropods) in the aerosphere presents considerable challenges, requiring creative integration of technological solutions for data acquisition and analysis. Remote sensing tools, such as Doppler radar, offer much promise for investigating aeroecological processes and dynamics at broad spatial and temporal scales. This research applies new three-dimensional visualization algorithms to a spatially-explicit analysis of NEXRAD radar images to model aerial dynamics of Brazilian free-tailed bats in order to determine animal dispersal and movement patterns. Calibration of volume-rendered 3D bat "clouds" are being developed from census counts derived from thermal infrared imaging data to estimate aerial population sizes and test biological hypotheses about influences of climate change on population dynamics of Brazilian free-tailed bats. The results contribute to conservation by identifying migratory corridors and seasonal foraging areas, which will help inform decisions on where not to place wind energy facilities, which function as mortality sinks to migratory bat populations. Brazilian free-tailed bats perform valuable ecosystem services by consuming metric tons of insect pests that infest cotton and corn crops. The results predict potential economic costs of climate change on the agricultural industry through loss of ecosystem service value of an important pest predator. Training objectives include advancing quantitative skills in remote sensing, visualization and imagery analysis, population modeling, and GIS.