NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2011

这一行动资助了NSF 2011财年生物学博士后研究奖学金，生物学与数学和物理科学的交叉点。该奖学金支持在东道主实验室为生物学和数学交叉点的研究员制定研究和培训计划。克莱顿·克雷斯勒的这项研究和培训计划的标题是《大型水蚤在联合饥饿和捕食风险下的生活史进化的理论-经验方法》。这一奖学金的主办机构是女王大学，赞助科学家威廉·纳尔逊博士和特洛伊·戴博士。一方面，避免饥饿，另一方面，避免捕食，是作用于动物种群的两种最强的选择性力量。此外，许多特征会影响生物体与其资源和捕食者的相互作用，因此饥饿和捕食风险往往会共同影响特征进化。然而，人们对每种风险对任何生物体特征进化的相对重要性知之甚少。要弄清饥饿和捕食风险之间的相互作用，需要生物实验和数学理论之间的密切对话。该项目采用这样的对话来(1)深入了解不同的资源和捕食者环境如何驱动对浮游动物Daphnia Pulex生活史的选择；(2)确定受每种力量影响最大的特征；以及(3)探索资源、捕食和生活史之间的反馈如何有助于不同Daphnia遗传型的共存。培训目标包括学习模式生物Daphnia Pulex的实验技术，使用经验数据在个人和种群层面上对动态模型进行参数化，并用新的实验数据严格面对这些模型，这些数据最终测试模型预测或指出需要更好的模型。数据将与水蚤基因组联盟共享，供公众使用。更广泛的影响包括指导来自数学和生物的本科生跨越学科界限工作，这是解决自然系统复杂性的关键技能。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2011, Intersections of Biology and Mathematical and Physical Sciences. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow at the intersection of biology with mathematics. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Clayton Cressler is "A theoretical-empirical approach to life history evolution under joint starvation and predation risks in Daphnia." The host institution for this fellowship is Queen's University with sponsoring scientists Drs. William Nelson and Troy Day.The need to avoid starvation, on one hand, and to avoid predation, on the other, are two of the strongest selective forces acting on animal populations. Furthermore, many traits affect an organism's interaction with both its resources and its predators, so starvation and predation risk will often jointly affect trait evolution. However, very little is known about the relative importance of each risk to trait evolution for any organism. Disentangling the interaction between starvation and predation risk requires an intimate dialogue between biological experiment and mathematical theory. This project employs such a dialogue to (1) gain insight into how different resource and predator environments drive selection on life history in the zooplankter Daphnia pulex; (2) identify the traits most strongly influenced by each force; and (3) explore how feedbacks between resources, predation, and life history contribute to the coexistence of different Daphnia genotypes. Training objectives include learning experimental techniques for the model organism Daphnia pulex, using empirical data to parameterize dynamical models at both the individual- and population-levels, and rigorously confronting these models with novel experimental data that definitively test model predictions or point out the need for better models. Data will be shared with the Daphnia Genome Consortium for public use. Broader impacts include mentoring undergraduates from both mathematics and biology to work across disciplinary boundaries, a crucial skill for tackling the complexity of natural systems.