NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2014

NSF生物学博士后奖学金为年轻科学家提供了在国外进行研究，建立富有成效的国际合作，并利用独特的研究和培训机会的机会。这些结果对美国和外国东道主都是有利的。迈克尔·l·洛根（Michael L. Logan）获得的这项奖学金支持结合生理生态学和进化生物学的研究和培训，以探索气候梯度对南非开普地区蜥蜴种群的生物学影响。该奖学金的主办机构是Stellenbosch大学，赞助科学家是Susana Clusella-Trullas博士。在这项研究的过程中，一个名为“行动中的进化：南非”的博客作为一个讨论论坛，邀请普通公众成员陪同研究员进入实地，以便他们可以参与数据收集的过程。该研究金提供发展新的分析方法和新的数据分析技术方面的培训，由国际和综合活动办公室以及生物科学司提供资金。开发能够准确预测动植物种群对快速环境变化的反应的模型已被证明有助于指导进一步的研究，建立有关生物反应的新知识，并指导公共政策。最近的研究结果预测，某些分类群体，如蜥蜴，特别容易受到气候变化的影响。但是，预测模型通常假设，决定物种如何应对气候变化的特征是固定的，例如，它们表现最佳的温度。换句话说，假设它们不能进化以应对气候变化。然而，强有力的证据表明，许多物种具有快速进化的能力，因此它们可能能够通过进化适应部分地减轻环境变化的负面影响。通过实验操纵整个种群来测试气候变化如何作为自然选择的代理人是困难的，但气候的自然地理变化可以作为这些影响的代理。在这项研究中，自然选择正在测量几个种群的科迪蜥蜴，这些种群发生在气候差异很大的环境中。这些对自然选择的估计被用来预测可能发生的进化变化的速度，以应对气候变暖。通过理解进化在物种对气候变化的反应中的作用，现实主义的一个关键组成部分可以被添加到预测模型中。

NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology provide opportunities for young scientists to conduct research abroad, to establish productive international collaborations, and to take advantage of unique research and training opportunities. These outcomes are mutually beneficial to the United States and to the foreign hosts. This fellowship to Michael L. Logan supports research and training that combines physiological ecology and evolutionary biology to explore biological consequences of climate gradients in a population of lizards in the Cape region of South Africa. The host institution for this fellowship is Stellenbosch University and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Susana Clusella-Trullas. Over the course of this study, a blog entitled Evolution in Action: South Africa serves as a discussion forum through which members of the general public are invited to accompany the Fellow into the field so that they may take part in the process of data collection. The fellowship provides training in the development of new assays and novel data analysis techniques and is being funded by the Office of International and Integrative Activities and the Directorate for Biological Sciences.Developing models that accurately forecast the responses of animal and plant populations to rapid environmental changes has proven useful to direct further research, establish new knowledge about biological responses, and for guiding public policy. Recent research results predict that certain taxonomic groups, such as lizards, are especially susceptible to changes in climate. But predictive models often assume that the characteristics of species that determine how they will respond to climate change, e.g., the temperatures at which they perform best, are fixed. In other words, it is assumed that they cannot evolve in response to a changing climate. Yet strong evidence suggests that many species have the capacity to evolve rapidly, and they might therefore be able partially to mitigate the negative effects of a changing environment through evolutionary adaptation. Experimentally manipulating whole populations to test how climate change may serve as an agent of natural selection is difficult, but natural geographic variation in climate can be used as a proxy for these effects. In this research, natural selection is being measured in several populations of Cordylid lizards occurring across environments that differ dramatically with respect to climate. These estimates of selection are then being used to predict the rate of evolutionary change that might occur in response to a warmer climate. By understanding the role of evolution in the response of species to climate change, a critical component of realism can be added to predictive models.