NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2019: Restoring tropical ecosystems using the wealth of information in rare plant collections

2019 财年 NSF 生物学博士后奖学金：利用珍稀植物收藏中的丰富信息恢复热带生态系统

• 批准号: 1907160
• 负责人: Leland Werden
• 金额: $ 13.8万
• 依托单位: Werden Leland K
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-10-01 至 2021-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1907160&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Postdoctoral; Fellowship; Biology; FY

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2019, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will utilize biological collections in innovative ways. Rapid human alteration of global processes and the degradation of ecosystems worldwide have led to a sixth mass-extinction event. To counteract these outcomes, botanical gardens and arboreta are leading the charge in the conservation and reintroduction of threatened and endangered plant species. Achieving these goals is challenging and determining how reintroduction outcomes are influenced by responses of threatened and endangered plants to environmental conditions at reintroduction sites could greatly improve conservation practice. However, there is still lack a basic understanding of the characteristics of threatened and endangered plants necessary to undertake these efforts. To address this, the fellow will focus on using the wealth of information on threatened and endangered plant species contained in living botanical collections to understand plant reintroduction outcomes, a novel use of these underutilized resources. To connect with the broader community the fellow will mentor undergraduate students underrepresented in the biological sciences and develop an education module on threatened and endangered plant conservation for K-12 students and the general public. The overall goal of this project is to determine the effects of environmental filtering on tropical threatened and endangered woody plant reintroductions. Many studies have focused on the importance of environmental filters in structuring plant communities, but most are limited in their ability to do so directly because they do not exclude competition. The fellow will use Hawaiian threatened and endangered reintroductions, where competition is excluded, as a model system to test the effects of environmental filtering on plant performance. Using this approach, and data from living threatened and endangered plant collections, the fellow will address the following questions: (Q1) How do the range of functional strategies possessed by Hawaiian threatened and endangered plant species differ from common invasive species? (Q2) What factors underlie threatened and endangered plant reintroduction outcomes? (Q3) How can trait multidimensionality inform the design of effective threatened and endangered plant reintroductions? This project will lead to a more thorough understanding of how species' trait syndromes mediate performance along abiotic gradients, while improving threatened and endangered plant reintroductions worldwide. These activities will significantly expand the fellow's expertise by providing training in the use of modeling approaches to determine how trait multidimensionality drives community assembly. Additionally, the fellow will develop a hands-on training workshop for undergraduate and graduate students focused on integrating plant functional traits into restoration and reintroduction projects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项行动资助了2019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，以创新的方式利用生物收藏。人类对全球进程的快速改变和全球生态系统的退化导致了第六次大规模灭绝事件。为了应对这些后果，植物园和树木园正在带头保护和重新引入受威胁和濒危植物物种。实现这些目标是具有挑战性的，并确定如何重新引入的结果是受威胁和濒危植物的环境条件在重新引入网站的反应，可以大大提高保护实践的影响。然而，仍然缺乏对受威胁和濒危植物的特征的基本了解，而这些特征是开展这些工作所必需的。为了解决这个问题，该研究员将侧重于利用活植物收藏中包含的受威胁和濒危植物物种的丰富信息，以了解植物重新引入的结果，这是对这些未充分利用的资源的一种新的利用。为了与更广泛的社区建立联系，该研究员将指导在生物科学领域代表性不足的本科生，并为K-12学生和公众开发有关受威胁和濒危植物保护的教育模块。该项目的总体目标是确定环境过滤对热带受威胁和濒危木本植物重新引入的影响。许多研究都集中在环境过滤器在构建植物群落的重要性，但大多数是有限的，因为他们没有排除竞争，直接这样做的能力。该研究员将使用夏威夷受威胁和濒危的重新引入，其中竞争被排除在外，作为一个模型系统来测试环境过滤对植物性能的影响。使用这种方法，从生活的受威胁和濒危植物收集的数据，该研究员将解决以下问题：（Q1）夏威夷受威胁和濒危植物物种拥有的功能策略的范围如何不同于常见的入侵物种？(Q2)受威胁和濒危植物再引进结果的基础因素是什么？(Q3)性状的多维性如何为有效的受威胁和濒危植物再引进的设计提供信息？该项目将导致更深入地了解物种的性状综合征如何沿沿着非生物梯度介导性能，同时改善全球受威胁和濒危植物的重新引入。这些活动将通过提供使用建模方法的培训来显着扩展研究员的专业知识，以确定特质多维性如何驱动社区组装。此外，该研究员将为本科生和研究生开发一个实践培训讲习班，重点是将植物功能性状整合到恢复和重新引入项目中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

项目成果

Ex situ conservation of threatened plant species in island biodiversity hotspots: A case study from Hawai‘i

岛屿生物多样性热点地区受威胁植物物种的异地保护：夏威夷案例研究

• DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108435
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Biological Conservation
• 影响因子: 5.9
• 作者: Werden, Leland K.;Sugii, Nellie C.;Weisenberger, Lauren;Keir, Matthew J.;Koob, Gregory;Zahawi, Rakan A.
• 通讯作者: Zahawi, Rakan A.