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

该行动为2020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，扩大生物学中代表性不足群体的参与。该奖学金支持研究员的一项研究和培训计划，该计划将增加生物学中代表性不足的群体的参与。植物对维持食物供应和保护自然生态系统至关重要。在农业和自然系统中，植物不是孤立生活的；它们受到与其他物种的相互作用和物理条件的影响。这项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结合起来，影响一种植物物种、一种蝴蝶物种（其毛虫消耗该植物）以及一种感染毛虫的致命病毒。结果将提供干旱、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，并改变目前对科学家的看法。该研究员将通过编制和执行双语（英语和西班牙语）教材的形式，扩大代表性不足的少数民族对科学的参与。教育内容将以植物生态学为重点，并用于接触圣地亚哥县大量讲西班牙语的人口。该研究员将控制蓝色西番莲植物（Passiflora caerulea）的水分供应，并在海湾贝母蝴蝶（Agraulis vanillae）的幼虫阶段进行核多角体病毒（NPV）的控制流行和感染，以记录水和NPV的存在对相互作用物种的种群动态、植物（P. caerulea）的授粉相关性状以及成年传粉者（A. vanillae）的授粉相关性状的影响。这项工作将整合实验操作（控制感染和流行病）和数学模型，以产生一个框架，该框架考虑了水对宿主-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有关干旱和NPV的存在如何影响植物吸引传粉昆虫的特征的信息，例如花的大小和数量，以及成年蝴蝶影响其传粉能力的特征。为了扩大代表性不足的群体对科学的参与，该研究员将侧重于为加利福尼亚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的西班牙语双语浸入式课程的学生合作，以及在圣地亚哥参加与西班牙语有关的社区活动的更广泛的非学术西班牙语听众合作来实现。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, 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.