NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2014

NSF生物学博士后研究金将联合收割机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，并要求制定计划，扩大科学和工程领域代表性不足的群体的参与。 该奖学金推动NSF努力使现在和未来的STEM劳动力多样化。 这个奖学金给蒂姆米切尔支持研究社会环境对蜥蜴生存和繁殖策略的影响。 培训目标包括生态学，进化和遗传学技术。 主办机构是伯明翰的亚拉巴马大学，赞助科学家是丹尼尔华纳。 扩大在科学领域代表性不足的群体参与的计划有两个方面：在伯明翰市的一所公立高中建立一个实践进化生态学单位，让学生接触科学研究，并通过创建一个网站和与在线青年杂志Youngzine合作，向6-12年级的观众传播尖端科学和来自各种高素质科学家的故事。主要研究目的是通过实验研究种群年龄结构对棕色变色蜥蜴野生岛屿种群生活史性状可塑性的影响。密切相关的焦点孵化蜥蜴被释放到复制的小岛屿与操纵的年龄结构。 这些种群要么完全缺乏成年种群，要么具有典型的成年蜥蜴密度。关键的生活史特征，这是预测不同的年龄结构的反应，正在获得精确的测量与分子方法的标记重捕。这项研究测试了生活史理论的基本预测，并探讨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.