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起来，为年轻科学家在生物学领域的职业生涯做好准备，并要求制定一项计划，扩大科学和工程领域代表性不足群体的参与。这些奖学金推动了NSF现在和未来使STEM劳动力多样化的努力。蒂姆·米切尔的这一奖学金支持关于社会环境对蜥蜴生存和繁殖策略的影响的研究。培训目标包括生态学、进化论和遗传学方面的技术。主办机构是阿拉巴马大学伯明翰分校，赞助科学家是丹尼尔·华纳。扩大科学界代表性不足群体参与的计划有两个：在伯明翰城的一所公立高中建立一个亲身实践的进化生态单元，让学生接触科学研究，并通过创建网站和与在线青年杂志Young zine合作，交流尖端科学和故事，从各种高素质的科学家到6-12年级的观众。本研究的主要目的是在实验上评估种群年龄结构对棕色变态蜥蜴野岛种群生活史特征可塑性的影响。密切相关的幼年蜥蜴正在被释放到具有被操纵的年龄结构的复制小岛上。这些种群要么完全缺乏成年蜥蜴种群，要么拥有典型的成年蜥蜴密度。对关键生活史特征的准确测量，预计会随着年龄结构的变化而变化，正在通过分子标记-再捕获方法获得。这项研究测试了生活史理论的基本预测，并探索了生活史可塑性在自由放养脊椎动物适应中的作用。

NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology combine research and training components to prepare young scientists for careers in biology and require a plan to broaden participation of groups under-represented in science and engineering. The fellowships advance NSF efforts to diversify the STEM workforce now and in the future. This fellowship to Tim Mitchell supports research on the influence of the social environment on strategies for survival and reproduction in lizards. Training goals include techniques from ecology, evolution and genetics. The host institution is the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the sponsoring scientist is Daniel Warner. The plans to broaden participation of groups under-represented in science are twofold: to develop a hands-on evolutionary ecology unit at a Birmingham City public high school that exposes students to scientific research and to communicate cutting-edge science and stories from a diverse range of high-quality scientists to 6-12 grade audiences through the creation of a website and collaboration with Youngzine, an online youth magazine. The primary research objective is experimentally to evaluate the influence of population age structure on plasticity in life-history traits in wild island populations of brown anole lizards. Closely related focal hatchling lizards are being released onto replicate small islands with manipulated age structures. These populations either lack an adult population entirely or have a typical density of adult lizards. Accurate measurements of key life-history traits, which are predicted to vary in response to age structure, are being obtained with mark-recapture on molecular methods. This research tests fundamental predictions of life history theory and explores the role of life-history plasticity in the adaptation of a free-ranging vertebrate.