NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2020: Functional traits as indicators of community structure and function

本行动资助美国国家科学基金会2020年度生物学博士后研究奖学金，利用生物馆藏进行研究。该奖学金支持研究和培训将以创新的方式使用生物馆藏的研究员。大型哺乳动物群落正以惊人的速度受到气候变化和栖息地丧失的影响。这项研究将调查哺乳动物群体的身体特征，如牙齿和骨骼元素，与它们被发现的特定环境之间的关系。利用化石记录中保存的特征，他将探索哺乳动物群落是如何自然聚集的，以及这些群落如何在长时间尺度上对环境变化和人类活动做出反应。这项研究将通过提供对生态系统以及它们如何随时间和不同环境而变化的更全面的了解，有助于保护生物多样性。在进行这项研究时，研究员将接受从博物馆标本中收集三维数据的新方法，定量数据分析教学的循证技术以及向公众传播科学的创新策略的培训。该研究员将根据研究结果编写当地动物以及它们如何随时间变化的信息手册，并将与40个美国生物野外站合作，将这些手册用于其外展计划。研究目标将利用功能性状-环境关系将性状模式与哺乳动物群落聚集联系起来，并描述生态和进化过程的相关影响。首先，该研究员将通过评估与环境相关的性状和功能群的反应滞后来表征化石记录中的性状-环境模式。每个滞后的地理、时间、环境和动物成分将被用来确定主要和重要的基础过程的模式，如物种形成、灭绝和范围转移。其次，他将研究现代性状-环境模式如何受到人为压力的影响，如土地利用和非本土物种（包括家养物种和入侵物种）。土地利用模式的纳入以及新的非本地社区成员的替代或增加将用于改进生物多样性变化的预测性状-环境模型。在导师的培训下，该研究员将整合两个研究目标和三个培训目标，以制作非正式的、基于现场的学习材料，其中包括该研究的古生物学成果。该研究员将通过指导两名将作为学生研究员参与该项目的本科生获得指导经验。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will use biological collections in innovative ways. Large mammal communities are being affected by climate change and habitat loss at a startling rate. This research will investigate how physical traits, such as teeth and skeletal elements, within mammalian communities are related to the specific environments where they are found. Using traits preserved in the fossil record, the fellow will explore how communities of mammals are naturally assembled and how those communities respond to environmental changes and human activities over long time scales. This research will contribute to conservation of biodiversity by providing a more complete understanding of ecosystems and how they change through time and across environments. While conducting this research, the fellow will be trained in novel methods of three-dimensional data collection from museum specimens, evidence-based techniques for teaching quantitative data analysis, and innovative strategies for communicating science to a public audience. The fellow will develop informational manuals local animals and how these change through time based on research results and will collaborate with 40 US biological field stations to use the manuals into their outreach programming.Research objectives will use functional trait-environment relationships to connect trait patterns with mammalian community assembly and describe the related effects of ecological and evolutionary processes. First, the fellow will characterize trait-environment patterns in the fossil record by evaluating response lags in traits and functional groups in relation to the environment. Geographic, temporal, environmental, and faunal components of each lag will be used to identify patterns of primary and significant underpinning processes, such as speciation, extinction, and range shift. Second, the fellow will investigate how modern trait-environment patterns are affected by anthropogenic pressures, such as land use and non-native species including domestic and invasive species. Inclusion of land use patterns and replacement by or addition of new, non-native community members will be used to improve predictive trait-environment models of biodiversity change. With training from mentors, the fellow will integrate two research objectives and three training objectives to produce informal, place-based learning materials that incorporate the paleobiological results from this research. The fellow will gain mentoring experience by supervising two undergraduates who will participate in this project as student researchers.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.