NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Assessing the effects of complex developmental environments on fitness across lifespans

该行动资助2021财年NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，研究基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该奖学金支持将以创新方式对生活规则领域作出贡献的研究员的研究和培训。该奖学金将支持综合有机体生物学的工作以及本科课程中基于学科的教育研究。通过该奖学金进行的生物学研究将检查环境在塑造生物体发展中的作用。通过研究先天与后天的培养关系，这项研究将阐明环境中复杂的、不断变化的方面是如何塑造生物体的进化适应性的。本研究的教育方面将旨在提高科罗拉多大学博尔德分校本科STEM课程的公平性和有效性。这两个研究目标都将产生学术著作，代表各自领域的新颖贡献。有机生物学研究的两个主要目标是：(1)利用建模方法分析现有经验数据，评估水分和温度对适应度的长期影响；(2)进一步开展水分和温度对表型、行为和适应度的交互影响的实证研究。棕色变色蜥蜴（Anolis sagrei）将作为这项研究的一个很好的系统，这项工作将填补对这一重要模式生物认识的重大空白。此外，这项奖学金将允许研究员在他们现有的野外生态学家技能的基础上，通过结合新技术，使研究真正具有综合性。研究员还将通过考察高等教育的教学实践来提高他们作为教育者的技能。这项研究将提供数据，可以塑造未来的教学技术，缩小边缘化学生群体的表现差距。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 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. This fellowship will support work in integrative organismal biology as well as discipline-based education research in undergraduate courses. The biological research conducted through this fellowship will examine the role of the environment in shaping the development of organisms. By examining the nurture half of nature versus nurture, this research will illuminate how complex, ever-changing aspects of the environment shape an organism’s evolutionary fitness. The educational aspect of this research will be directed at improving equity and efficacy in undergraduate STEM courses at University of Colorado Boulder. Both of these research aims will produce scholarly works that will represent novel contributions to the respective fields. The two overarching goals of the organismal biology research are: (1) to assess the long-term effects of moisture and temperature individually on fitness using a modeling approach to analyze existing empirical data and (2) conduct further empirical studies on the interactive effects of moisture and temperature on phenotypes, behaviors, and fitness. The brown anole lizard (Anolis sagrei) will serve as an excellent system for this research, and this work will fill a significant gap in the understanding of this important model organism. Additionally, this fellowship will allow the fellow to build on their existing skill set as a field ecologist by incorporating new techniques that will make the research truly integrative in nature. The fellow will also improve their skills as an educator by examining teaching practices in higher education. This research will provide data that can shape future instructional techniques that will close performance gaps for marginalized student groups.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.