NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2014

NSF生物学博士后奖学金将研究和培训部分结合在一起，为年轻科学家在生物学领域的职业生涯做好准备，并为他们提供建立国际合作和利用国外研究设施和机会的机会。建立强有力的国际合作对美国和外国东道主都是有利的。卡莉·D·肯克尔的奖学金支持一项研究和培训计划，该计划以造礁珊瑚为模型系统，调查共生体传播模式的演变。这项研究将推进关于互惠共生进化的基本科学知识，并提高对珊瑚-藻类共生的理解，珊瑚-藻类共生是地球上最具生态和经济意义的生态系统之一的基础。主办机构是澳大利亚海洋科学研究所(AIMS)，赞助科学家是Line Bay博士。培训目标包括获得新的生化技术、下一代测序方法和生物信息学分析方面的专业知识。教育和公共宣传活动包括与当地一所学校合作，在AIMS建立高中实习方案。这项奖学金由国际和综合活动办公室和生物科学局共同资助。共生在自然界中无处不在，但人们对任何系统中的传播模式如何演变知之甚少。造礁珊瑚是研究这一问题的一个很好的系统，因为共生体的传播模式在珊瑚谱系中反复出现分歧，而且最近出现了分歧。这项研究测试了垂直共生体传播(共生体从父母向后代的直接转移)稳定互惠关系的假设。实验室实验使用生物化学和生理学方法来量化珊瑚宿主和具有不同共生体传播策略的密切相关珊瑚中的藻类共生体之间的资源共享。比较基因组学方法正被用来通过寻找选择的特征来识别参与不同传播模式进化的基因。

NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology combine research and training components to prepare young scientists for careers in biology and provide them an opportunity to establish international collaborations and take advantage of research facilities and opportunities abroad. Forging strong international collaborations is mutually beneficial to the U.S. and the foreign hosts. The fellowship to Carly D. Kenkel supports a research and training plan to investigate the evolution of symbiont transmission mode using reef-building corals as a model system. The research will advance basic scientific knowledge concerning the evolution of mutualisms and elevate understanding of the coral-algal symbiosis, the foundation of one of the most ecologically and economically important ecosystems on earth. The host institution is The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Line Bay. Training goals include acquiring expertise in novel biochemical techniques, next-generation sequencing methods and bioinformatics analyses. Educational and public outreach activities include establishing a high school internship program at AIMS in collaboration a local school. This fellowship is being funded jointly by the Office of International and Integratiave Activities and the Directorate for Biological Sciences.Symbioses are ubiquitous in the natural world, yet little is known about how transmission mode evolves in any system. Reef-building corals are a good system in which to study this question because symbiont transmission mode has diverged repeatedly and recently across coral lineages. This research tests the hypothesis that vertical symbiont transmission (direct transfer of symbionts from parent to offspring) stabilizes mutualistic relationships. Laboratory experiments use biochemical and physiological assays to quantify resource sharing between coral hosts and algal symbionts in closely related corals with different symbiont transmission strategies. Comparative genomic methods are being used to identify genes involved in the evolution of different transmission modes by looking for signatures of selection.