NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Does genomic recombination stabilize populations and enhance ecosystems?

这一行动为NSF 2021财年生物学博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，综合研究调查了支配基因组、环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则。该奖学金支持研究员的研究和培训，这些研究员将以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。生态系统为人类提供了无价的服务，如维持水质和减少沿海洪灾影响。生命的一条关键规则是，物种更多的生态系统往往提供更好和更一致的服务。同样的规则也可能适用于物种，在物种中，个体多样性较高的种群--即遗传多样性较高--更稳定，提供更好的生态系统服务。如果这是真的，管理物种群落以保持高度的遗传多样性可能会为人类带来巨大的好处。然而，在单一物种中，有性繁殖通过产生带有新基因组合的后代(重组的结果)，随着时间的推移改变了遗传多样性。这个项目询问这种情况是否通过扰乱遗传多样性的最佳状态来破坏上述生命规则。通过回答这个问题，将对如何适当地管理包含多个生物组织水平的地理区域的遗传多样性提出新的见解。该研究员将通过让任职人数不足的群体的成员参与研究和培训活动，提供与这项工作有关的外联活动。这个项目将解决种内水平的重组如何改变种间理论的预测，从而促进生物学中的跨尺度合成。具体地说，种间理论预测，具有高度分化物种混合的群落将具有更高的稳定性和功能。种内水平的重组可能会改变这一预测，因为它会产生适合度较低的后代，从而降低稳定性和功能(近交-抑制假说)。相反，高度分化的基因类型之间的重组可以增加后代之间的基因多样性，从而增加稳定性和功能(增加多样性假说)。这位研究员将利用基因组学、基于实验室的育种实验和基于田间的中围体实验，在一个模型系统-大型水蚤-中测试分歧和重组如何相互作用来改变种群的稳定性和功能。这位研究员将学习、应用和推进基因组技术，以测量物种内各种形式的遗传差异。该研究员还将编写《保护从业者遗传管理指南》，为来自生物代表性不足社区的两名技术人员提供培训和研究机会，并继续与K-12教育工作者接触。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 2021, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the Fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. Ecosystems provide invaluable services to humans such as maintaining water quality and reducing coastal flooding effects. A key rule of life is that ecosystems with more species often provide better and more consistent services. The same rule might also apply within species, where populations with a higher diversity of individuals – that is higher genetic diversity – are more stable and provide better ecosystem services. If this is true, managing communities of species to maintain high genetic diversity could provide significant benefits to humans. However, within a single species, sexual reproduction alters genetic diversity over time by producing offspring with new combinations of genes (a result of recombination). This project asks whether this circumstance breaks down the aforementioned rule of life by disrupting optimal states of genetic diversity. By answering this question, new insights will be made about how to appropriately manage genetic diversity across geographic regions that encompass multiple levels of biological organization. The Fellow will provide outreach activities associated with this work by involving members of underrepresented groups in research and training activities. This project will address how recombination at the intraspecific level alters predictions from interspecific theory, and therefore contributes to a cross-scale synthesis in biology. Specifically, interspecific theory predicts that communities with a mix of highly diverged species will have higher stability and function. Recombination at the intraspecific level could change this prediction because it can produce offspring with low fitness and thereby reduce stability and function (outbreeding-depression hypothesis). Conversely, recombination between highly diverged genotypes could increase genotypic diversity among offspring and thus increase stability and function (increased-diversity hypothesis). The Fellow will use genomics, lab-based breeding experiments, and field-based mesocosm experiments in a model system - Daphnia magna - to test how divergence and recombination interact to alter population stability and function. The Fellow will learn, apply, and advance genomic techniques for measuring the various forms of genetic divergence within species. The Fellow will also produce a Guide to Genetic Management for Conservation Practitioners, provide training and research exposure to two technicians from underrepresented communities in biology, and continue outreach to K-12 educators.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.