NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2015

这一行动为2015财年NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金--使用生物收藏进行研究--提供资金。该奖学金支持该研究员的研究和培训计划，以采取变革性的方法来应对生物学领域的重大挑战，以高度创新的方式利用生物收藏。萨拉·E·本斯顿的这项研究计划的标题是“岩蚁社会寄生的进化史(属：Temnothorax)。”该奖学金的主办机构是罗切斯特大学，赞助科学家是克里斯蒂安·拉布林。冲突和合作是许多动物社会的基本特征。这两种力量之间的平衡有多种形式，通常反映在整个物种的生态中。社会寄生就是这样一个例子，当一个社会物种的成员利用另一个社会群体或物种的资源，在寄生虫和被剥削的宿主中创造复杂的进化特征时，就会发生这种情况。在群居昆虫(如蚂蚁和蜜蜂)中，群居寄生可能发生在物种内部和物种之间，这意味着殖民地可能会利用同一物种、其他物种或两者兼而有之的群体。这项研究解决了寄生现象是如何产生的问题。由于寄生虫可以驱动生物多样性，每年造成数百万美元的农业损失，导致疾病传播的新媒介，并影响保护工作，因此了解寄生虫如何产生和多样化是社会的根本利益。该奖学金的研究部分调查了美国西部棕色岩蚁(属：坦诺胸蚁)中有记录的第一例社会寄生病例。来自加州科学院、史密森学会和哈佛大学比较动物学博物馆的生物标本是分子和形态数据的来源，用于实现三个研究目标：阐明坦诺胸蜂寄主/寄生虫对的自然历史，以确定在物种内部和物种之间的社会寄生有多普遍；重建坦诺胸蚁的进化史，以了解社会寄生是如何产生的；以及确定种群的亚群是否已经变得生殖隔离，即表现出由于与种群其余部分的有限基因流动而导致的行为变化和其他适应。培训目标包括学习和掌握新的分子遗传和基因组技术，使用精心策划的自然历史收藏，以及为未来的研究职业生涯开展职业发展活动，重点是进化遗传学、社会生物学、亲属关系和亲属冲突理论、物种形成和社会寄生虫的进化。更广泛的影响包括对本科生和研究生的教育推广，以及合作为生物学盒子计划制定课程，该计划服务于5个州33个学校系统的贫困学生，为K-12学校的STEM课程提供动手的、基于探究的补充材料。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2015, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow to take transformative approaches to grand challenges in biology that employ biological collections in highly innovative ways. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Sarah E. Bengston is "The evolutionary history of social parasitism in rock ants (genus: Temnothorax)." The host institution for this fellowship is University of Rochester, and the sponsoring scientist is Christian Rabeling. Conflict and cooperation are foundational traits in many animal societies. The balance between these two forces takes many forms and often is reflected in the ecology of an entire species. Social parasitism is one such example and occurs when members of a social species exploit the resources of another social group or species, creating complex evolved traits in both the parasite and the exploited host. In social insects (such as ants and bees), social parasitism may occur both within and between species, meaning colonies may exploit colonies of the same species, other species or both. The research addresses the question of how parasitism arises. As parasitism can drive biodiversity, cost millions of dollars in agricultural damage annually, result in new vectors for disease transmission and affect conservation efforts, understanding how parasites arise and diversify is of fundamental interest to society. The research portion of the fellowship investigates the first recorded case of social parasitism in the western U.S. species of brown rock ant (genus: Temnothorax). Specimens from biological collections at the California Academy of Science, the Smithsonian Institution and the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology are the source of molecular and morphological data for addressing three research objectives: elucidate the natural history of Temnothorax host/parasite pairs to determine how widespread is social parasitism, both within and between the species; reconstruct the evolutionary history of Temnothorax ants to understand how social parasitism arose; and identify if subsets of the population has become reproductively isolated, that is, displaying behavioral shifts and other adaptations resulting from limited gene flow with the rest of the population. Training goals include learning and mastering new molecular genetic and genomic techniques, working with curated natural history collections, and career development activities for a future research career with a focus on evolutionary genetics, sociobiology, kinship and kin-conflict theory, speciation, and the evolution of social parasitism. Broader impacts include educational outreach to undergraduate and graduate students and collaborating to develop a curriculum for the Biology in a Box program, which serves under-privileged students in 33 school systems in 5 states, to provide hands-on, inquiry based supplemental material for STEM curricula in K-12 schools.