NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

2016 财年 NSF 生物学博士后奖学金

• 批准号: 1612862
• 负责人: Chris Hamilton
• 金额: $ 20.7万
• 依托单位: Hamilton Chris A
• 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: 2016-06-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1612862&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Postdoctoral; Fellowship; Biology; FY

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.

博士后研究员：Chris A. Hamilton提案编号：1612862这一行动资金NSF博士后研究奖学金在生物学为2016财年，扩大在生物学代表性不足的群体的参与与部落学院和大学计划在教育和人力资源局的合作伙伴关系。该研究金支持一项研究和培训计划，让研究员从事研究和培训，以增加在生物学领域代表性不足的群体的参与。 本奖学金的研究计划的标题是克里斯A。汉密尔顿是“扩大美洲原住民参与收集为基础的研究：测试假设的鹰蛾蝙蝠进化军备竞赛。“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。 研究员的研究重点是天蛾形态多样性的演变，天蛾是一种物种丰富的昆虫。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。天蛾是一种大型的、有魅力的蛾类，它们是强壮、快速的飞行者，具有各种各样的前翅形状变化和身体大小，但很少有研究调查这种壮观的形态多样性的驱动因素。在5000万到6000万年前，回声定位蝙蝠的主要进化谱系出现了，沿着的是大异角类的大量辐射，这是一组蛾类物种，包括天蛾。这位研究员正在测试一个有趣但未经探索的假设，即天蛾翅膀形状和身体大小的差异与其主要夜间捕食者蝙蝠的多样性有关。这一想法挑战了传统的假设，即蛾类的多样化是由植物进化驱动的（因为植物是它们的食物来源）。在大约1,500种天蛾中，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。天蛾的快速飞行，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，并在成年天蛾为自己寻找食物或为幼虫寻找寄主植物时覆盖很长的距离。这种长时间的飞行会使天蛾容易受到蝙蝠的捕食，从而提供了一种强大的选择力，导致了逃避的反蝙蝠特征，不同的身体大小和翅膀形状能够支持杂技般的逃避飞行;但是，在此情况下，还没有人在系统发育的背景下检验过这一假设。拟议中的项目通过使用令人兴奋的研究问题和一个交互式学习的方法来描述天蛾翅膀的形状，调查历史进化序列的反蝙蝠性状，并测试这些性状和现存的多样性之间的相关性。该研究员正在吸引来自俄克拉荷马州奇克索民族的中学生，利用FLMNH的博物馆藏品回答有关多样性模式的基本假设-有效地将NSF的两个任务联系起来：增加少数民族的参与和增加生物收藏的效用。这项合作研究向学生介绍了自然历史收藏的有用性（学生收集关于天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，并激发学生的兴趣。对进化感兴趣。此外，契卡索民族的学生在夏季前往FLMNH期间接触到自己的文化历史;在此期间，他们在收藏中工作，协助DNA提取和准备对天蛾物种进行测序，重要的是，通过与考古文物的互动发现他们的契卡索祖先的历史。