NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2020: Individual and population-level effects of water in a tritrophic system: impacts on pollination, herbivory, and parasitism

这项行动资助了2020财年的NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，扩大了生物学中代表性不足的群体的参与。该研究金支持研究员的一项研究和培训计划，该计划将增加在生物学领域代表性不足的群体的参与。植物在维持食物供应和保护自然生态系统方面至关重要。在农业和自然系统中，植物不是孤立地生活的;它们受到与其他物种的相互作用和物理条件的影响。该研究将研究包括授粉和疾病在内的生态相互作用如何与水的可用性联合收割机，以影响植物物种，蝴蝶物种，其毛虫消耗植物，以及感染毛虫的致命病毒。研究结果将提供有关干旱、疾病和草食性昆虫如何影响相互作用物种的种群动态的信息。该提案的扩大参与部分旨在促进人们对植物生物学的兴奋和好奇心，并改变目前科学家的看法。该研究员将通过编制和实施双语（英语和西班牙语）教材等形式的外联活动，扩大代表性不足的少数群体对科学的参与。教育内容将侧重于植物生态学，并用于接触圣地亚哥县大量讲西班牙语的人口。研究员将操纵水的可用性，以蓝色西番莲植物（Passiflora caerulea），并在海湾贝母蝴蝶幼虫阶段进行有控制的核多角体病毒（NPV）流行和感染（Agraulis vanillae），以记录水和NPV的存在对相互作用物种的种群动态的影响，植物的授粉相关性状（P. caerulea）和成花传粉者（A.香草）。这项工作将整合实验操作（控制感染和流行病）和数学模型，以生成一个框架，考虑水对宿主-病原体，植物-食草动物和植物-传粉者相互作用的总体影响。这些实验操作将提供关于干旱和NPV的存在如何影响与它们如何吸引授粉昆虫相关的植物性状的信息，例如花的大小和数量，以及影响它们为植物授粉能力的成年蝴蝶的性状。为了扩大代表性不足的群体对科学的参与，研究员将侧重于为加州圣地亚哥讲西班牙语的人口开展外联活动，目的是增加人们对植物研究在日常生活中的重要性的认识。这将通过与K-12学生在西班牙语双语浸入式课程和更广泛的非学术西班牙语观众，参加在圣地亚哥西班牙裔相关的社区活动的工作来实现。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是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的支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, Broadening Participation of Groups Under-represented in Biology. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. Plants are essential in maintaining the food supply and in the conservation of natural ecosystems. In agricultural and natural systems, plants do not live in isolation; they are affected by interactions with other species and by physical conditions. The research will examine how ecological interactions including pollination and disease combine with water availability to affect a plant species, a butterfly species, whose caterpillars consume the plant, and a lethal virus that infects the caterpillars. The results will provide information on how drought, disease, and herbivorous insects affect the population dynamics of the interacting species. The broadening participation component of this proposal aims to promote excitement and curiosity of people for plant biology and shift current perceptions of scientists. The Fellow will broaden the participation of underrepresented minorities in the sciences through outreach in the form of the development and implementation of bilingual (English and Spanish) educational materials. Educational content will be focused on plant ecology and be used to reach out to the large Spanish-speaking population of San Diego county. The Fellow will manipulate water availability to blue passionflower plants (Passiflora caerulea) and conduct controlled epidemics and infections of nuclear polyhedrosis virus (NPV) on the larval stage of gulf fritillary butterflies (Agraulis vanillae), to document the effects of water and the presence of NPV on the population dynamics of the interacting species, the pollination-related traits of the plant (P. caerulea), and the pollination-related traits of the adult pollinator (A. vanillae). This work will integrate experimental manipulations (controlled infections and epidemics) and mathematical models to generate a framework that considers the overarching impacts that water has on host-pathogen, plant-herbivore, and plant-pollinator interactions. These experimental manipulations will provide information on how drought and presence of NPV affect traits of the plants related to how they attract pollinating insects, such as the size and number of flowers, as well as traits of the adult butterflies that affect their ability to pollinate plants. To broaden the participation of under-represented groups in science, the Fellow will focus on generating outreach activities for the Spanish-speaking population of San Diego, California with the aim to increase knowledge about the importance of plant research in everyday life. This will be achieved by working with K-12 students in Spanish dual-language immersion programs and a wider non-academic Spanish-speaking audience that attends Hispanic-related community events in San Diego.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.