NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

本行动与教育和人力资源理事会部落学院和大学计划合作，为2016财年美国国家科学基金会生物学博士后研究奖学金提供资金，以扩大生物学中代表性不足的群体的参与。该奖学金支持一项研究和培训计划，使研究员从事研究和培训，以增加生物学中代表性不足的群体的参与。这项研究计划的题目是“扩大印第安人对基于收藏的研究的参与：测试关于鹰蛾-蝙蝠进化军备竞赛的假设”。该奖学金的主办机构是佛罗里达大学和佛罗里达自然历史博物馆（FLMNH），赞助科学家是Akito Kawahara博士和Charles Cobb博士。该研究员的研究重点是飞蛾（一种物种丰富的昆虫）形态多样性的进化。这项研究增强了我们对进化模式和过程如何产生地球多样性的理解，这是生物学中的一个关键问题。飞蛾是一种体型庞大、魅力十足的飞蛾，它们强壮、飞行速度快，具有多种多样的前翼形状和体型，但很少有研究调查了这种壮观的形态多样性的驱动因素。在5000万至6000万年前，回声定位蝙蝠的主要进化谱系出现了，同时出现了巨异角目的大量分支，巨异角目是包括飞蛾在内的一组飞蛾物种。这位研究员正在测试一个有趣但尚未被探索的假设，即飞蛾翅膀形状和体型的差异与它们主要的夜间捕食者——蝙蝠的多样性有关。这一观点挑战了飞蛾多样化是由植物进化驱动的传统假设（因为植物是它们的食物来源）。在大约1500种飞蛾中，可以发现反蝙蝠的特征，包括对蝙蝠超声波回声定位敏感的耳朵和“干扰”蝙蝠生物声纳的超声波产生器官。飞蛾的快速飞行，也被认为是一种抗蝙蝠的特性，可能提供了逃避捕食者的能力，并在成年飞蛾为自己寻找食物或为幼虫寻找寄主植物时覆盖很远的距离。这些长时间的飞行将使飞蛾容易受到蝙蝠的捕食，据推测，这提供了一种强大的选择性力量，导致了躲避反蝙蝠的特征，不同的身体大小和翅膀形状能够支持杂技般的躲避飞行；然而，还没有人在系统发育的背景下检验这一假设。该项目通过令人兴奋的研究问题和互动学习方法来表征飞蛾翅膀形状，调查抗蝙蝠特征的历史进化序列，并测试这些特征与现存多样性之间的相关性，从而促进美洲原住民学生参与生物学。该研究员通过利用FLMNH的博物馆藏品来回答关于多样性模式的基本假设，从而吸引了来自俄克拉何马州契卡索民族的初高中学生——有效地将NSF的两个使命联系起来：增加少数民族的参与和增加生物藏品的效用。这项合作研究向学生们介绍了自然历史收藏的有用性（学生们收集了关于飞蛾翅膀形状和身体大小的形态测量数据），展示了研究人员如何利用这些资源来回答基本的生物学问题，并激发了学生的兴趣。对进化感兴趣。此外，奇卡索民族的学生们在夏季到FLMNH的旅行中接触到他们自己的文化历史；在这段时间里，他们在收藏中工作，协助提取DNA并准备对飞蛾物种进行测序，重要的是，通过与考古文物的互动，发现他们的奇卡索祖先的历史。

Postdoctoral Fellow: Dr. Chris A. HamiltonProposal number: 1612862This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2016, Broadening Participation of Groups Under-represented in Biology in partnership with the Tribal Colleges and Universities program in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow to engage in research and training that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Dr. Chris A. Hamilton is "Broadening Participation of Native Americans into Collections-Based Research: Testing Hypotheses on the Hawkmoth-Bat Evolutionary Arms Race." The host institution for this fellowship is The University of Florida and The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH), and the sponsoring scientists are Dr. Akito Kawahara and Dr. Charles Cobb. The Fellow's research focuses on the evolution of morphological diversity in hawkmoths, a species-rich group of insects. This research enhances our understanding of how evolutionary pattern and process produced Earth's diversity, a key question in biology. Hawkmoths are large, charismatic moths that are strong, fast fliers, with a diverse array of forewing shape variation and body size, yet few studies have investigated the drivers of this spectacular morphological diversity. Between 50-60 million years ago, major evolutionary lineages of echolocating bats emerged, along with a large radiations of the Macroheterocera, a group of moth species that includes the hawkmoths. The Fellow is testing the intriguing but unexplored hypothesis that differences in hawkmoth wing shape and body size are associated with the diversity of their primary nocturnal predators - bats. This idea challenges the conventional hypothesis that moth diversification was driven by plant evolution (because plants are their food source). Across the approximately 1,500 species of hawkmoths, anti-bat traits can be found which include ears keen to a bat's ultrasonic echolocation and ultrasound-producing organs that "jam" bat biosonar. The fast flight of hawkmoths, also thought to be an anti-bat trait, likely provides the ability to escape predators and cover large distances as adult hawkmoths seek out food for themselves or host plants for their larvae. These extended periods of flight would render hawkmoths vulnerable to predation by bats, putatively providing a strong selective force that led to evasive anti-bat traits, diverse body sizes, and wing shapes able to support acrobatic evasive flight; however, no one has tested this hypothesis in a phylogenetic context.The proposed project promotes the participation of Native American students in biology by using exciting research questions and an interactive learning approach to characterize hawkmoth wing shape, investigate the historical evolutionary sequence of anti-bat traits, and test for correlations between these traits and extant diversity. The Fellow is engaging middle and high school students from The Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, by utilizing museum collections at the FLMNH to answer fundamental hypotheses regarding patterns of diversity - effectively linking two of NSF's missions: increasing minority participation and increasing the utility of biological collections. This collaborative research introduces the students to the usefulness of natural history collections (students gather morphometric data on hawkmoth wing shape and body size), demonstrates how researchers can use these resources to answer fundamental biological questions, and sparks students? interest in evolution. In addition, Chickasaw Nation students are being exposed to their own cultural history during summer trips to the FLMNH; during this time they work in the collections, assist in DNA extraction and preparation for sequencing of hawkmoth species, and importantly, discover the history of their Chickasaw ancestors through interactions with archeological artifacts.