NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

2016 财年 NSF 生物学博士后奖学金

• 批准号: 1611710
• 负责人: Lisa Barrow
• 金额: $ 13.8万
• 依托单位: Barrow Lisa N
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-11-01 至 2018-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1611710&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Postdoctoral; Fellowship; Biology; FY

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.

该奖项将支持2016财年NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，使用生物收集的研究。该研究金支持研究员的研究和培训计划，以采取变革性方法应对生物学的重大挑战，以高度创新的方式利用生物学收藏。 这项研究计划的标题为丽莎巴罗是“评估宿主特异性和气候限制的禽血液寄生虫使用全基因组的方法。“这项研究的主办机构是新墨西哥州大学和瑞典隆德大学，赞助科学家是克里斯托弗·维特博士和斯塔凡·本施博士。这项研究的目的是（1）揭示鸟类血液寄生虫的生物多样性模式（即，疟疾和相关的血孢子虫），以及（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。了解专业生命策略（生活在狭窄环境条件下的生物体）或通才生命策略（具有占据广泛环境能力的生物体）的进化是生物学中的关键问题，在宿主-病原体系统中尤为重要。该研究员的研究利用西南生物学博物馆中广泛的鸟类和寄生虫收藏，结合新兴的基因组技术，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建模，以解决三个主要研究目标。该研究员有三个研究目标：1）评估宿主特异性水平; 2）估计专家和通才生活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，该研究员正在收集基因组数据，以调查秘鲁安第斯山脉海拔梯度沿着的血液寄生虫，该地区有多种鸟类宿主社区和气候状况。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，暴露于新的病原体是一个紧迫的问题，人口的持久性。通过关注沿着海拔梯度的社区，研究员的研究正在深入了解限制寄生虫分布的因素。研究员正在接受鸟类宿主-寄生虫系统的培训，发展博物馆策展方面的专业知识，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。这些目标直接有助于研究员作为一个独立的研究科学家专注于自然历史收藏的发展。研究重点是人类广泛关注的领域（疾病和气候变化），从而提供了几个机会，以促进培训和学习，扩大代表性不足的群体的参与，并发展国际合作。该研究员正在向本科生提供研究经验，他们正在接受适用于生物医学或野生动物保护职业的技能培训（血涂片分析，分子数据收集和分析，物种分布建模）。该研究员通过与UNM的学生发展最大化计划协调来招募研究助理，该计划旨在增加STEM领域的多样性。该研究员还访问了共同赞助者在瑞典的实验室，以进一步发展国际合作。研究结果通过MSB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收藏的认识和兴趣。