NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

该奖项将支持美国国家科学基金会（NSF） 2016年度生物学博士后研究奖学金，“利用生物馆藏进行研究”。该奖学金支持一项研究和培训计划，使研究员能够以高度创新的方式采用生物收集的变革性方法来应对生物学方面的重大挑战。Lisa Barrow的研究计划的标题是“使用全基因组方法评估宿主特异性和鸟类血液寄生虫的气候限制”。该奖学金的主办机构是新墨西哥大学和瑞典隆德大学，赞助科学家是Christopher Witt博士和Staffan Bensch博士。本研究的目的是：(1)揭示鸟类血液寄生虫（即疟疾和相关的血孢子虫）的生物多样性模式；(2)确定鸟类宿主群落和气候的相互作用如何影响寄生虫的分布。了解特殊生命策略（生活在狭窄环境条件下的生物）或通才生命策略（能够占据广泛环境的生物）的进化是生物学中的一个关键问题，在宿主-病原体系统中尤为重要。该研究员的研究利用了西南生物博物馆广泛的鸟类和寄生虫收藏，结合了新兴的基因组技术、现有的标本和序列数据库、血液涂片显微镜、系统发育分析和物种分布模型，以解决三个主要的研究目标。研究员有三个研究目标：1)评估宿主特异性水平；2)估计在专门型和通才型生命策略之间过渡的进化模式；3)确定宿主免疫系统或气候对寄生虫分布的相对影响。为了实现这些目标，研究员正在收集基因组数据，以便在秘鲁安第斯山脉地区沿海拔梯度调查血液寄生虫，这是一个拥有多种鸟类宿主群落和气候制度的地区。宿主转换具有重要的进化和生态意义，也可能对缺乏某些寄生虫经验的本地野生动物种群造成毁灭性影响。面对不断变化的环境和气候，接触新的病原体是影响种群持续性的一个紧迫问题。通过关注沿海拔梯度的群落，研究员的研究为限制寄生虫分布的因素提供了见解。该研究员正在接受禽类宿主-寄生虫系统方面的培训，发展博物馆管理方面的专门知识，提高生物信息学和分析技能，加强她的指导技能，并建立国际合作。这些目标直接促进了研究员作为一个专注于自然历史收藏的独立研究科学家的发展。研究的重点是人类广泛关心的领域（疾病和气候变化），从而提供了若干促进培训和学习、扩大代表性不足群体的参与和发展国际合作的机会。该研究员为正在接受生物医学或野生动物保护职业技能培训的本科生提供研究经验（血液涂片分析、分子数据收集和分析、物种分布建模）。该研究员通过与新墨西哥大学的“最大化学生发展计划”协调招聘研究助理，该计划旨在增加STEM领域的多样性。该研究员还访问了共同发起人在瑞典的实验室，以进一步发展国际合作。研究结果将通过博物馆鸟类学博客和开放日与公众分享，以提高公众对科学研究和博物馆藏品的认识和兴趣。

This award will support an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2016, 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 Lisa Barrow is "Assessing host specificity and climatic limits of avian blood parasites using a genome-wide approach." The host institutions for this fellowship are the University of New Mexico and Lund University, Sweden, and the sponsoring scientists are Dr. Christopher Witt and Dr. Staffan Bensch.The aims of this research are to (1) uncover patterns of biological diversity of avian blood parasites (i.e., malaria and related haemosporidians), and (2) determine how the interaction of bird host communities and climate affect parasite distributions. Understanding the evolution of either specialist life strategies (organisms living in a narrow range of environmental conditions) or generalist life strategies (organisms with the ability to occupy a wide range of environments) is a key question in biology and is of particular importance in host-pathogen systems. The Fellow's research uses the extensive bird and parasite collections in the Museum of Southwestern Biology, combining emerging genomic technologies, existing specimen and sequence databases, microscopy of blood smears, phylogenetic analysis, and species distribution modeling to address three main research objectives. The Fellow has three research objectives: 1) to assess levels of host specificity; 2) estimate evolutionary patterns of transition between specialist and generalist life strategies, and 3) determine the relative influence of host immune system or climate on parasite distributions. To pursue these objectives, the Fellow is collecting genomic data to investigate blood parasites along elevational gradients in the Peruvian Andes, a region with a diverse avian host community and climatic regime. Host switching has important evolutionary and ecological implications, and can also be devastating to native wildlife populations that are inexperienced with certain parasites. In the face of changing environments and climate, exposure to new pathogens is a pressing concern for population persistence. By focusing on communities along elevational gradients, the Fellow's research is providing insights into the factors limiting parasite distributions.The Fellow is receiving training in avian host-parasite systems, developing expertise in museum curation, improving bioinformatic and analytical skills, strengthening her mentoring skills, and building international collaborations. These goals directly contribute to the Fellow's development as an independent research scientist focusing on natural history collections. The research focuses on areas of broad human interest (disease and climate change), thereby providing several opportunities to promote training and learning, broaden participation of underrepresented groups, and develop international collaborations. The Fellow is providing research experiences to undergraduates, who are receiving training in skills applicable to biomedical or wildlife conservation careers (blood smear analysis, molecular data collection and analysis, species distribution modeling). The fellow recruits research assistants by coordinating with UNM's Initiative for Maximizing Student Development program, which works to increase diversity in STEM fields. The fellow is also visiting the co-sponsor's lab in Sweden to further develop international collaborations. Results from the research are being shared with the public through the MSB Ornithology Blog and Open House in order to increase public awareness and interest in scientific research and museum collections.