NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Investigating evolutionary mechanisms that facilitate local adaptation via inversions in the Atlantic silverside

该行动资助了NSF 2021财年生物学博士后研究奖学金，即研究基因组、环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该研究金支持研究员的研究和培训，以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。自然环境往往是异质的，在一个物种的范围内，条件的空间变化很大。一个物种内的种群通过适应这些不同的环境而获得优势，而这种局部适应可以通过生物体基因组内的结构变异来促进。研究员将研究结构基因组变异如何使种群适应环境，以及这些类型的变异如何使种群分化和物种形成。这项研究对于了解生物多样性的起源和维持所涉及的机制以及物种如何适应不断变化的气候条件非常重要。通过这项研究，研究员还将通过指导本科生参与独立研究项目，倡导开放科学和可重复的研究实践，并在开放科学原则和工具方面培训早期职业学生，从而扩大STEM的参与。这项研究将整合来自常见花园实验，基因组分析和进化建模的数据，以研究结构基因组变异-特别是，反转-促进野生种群的局部适应。它将使用与大西洋银汉鱼（Menidia menidia）的局部适应表型相关的大反转区作为模型系统。该项目的主要成果将包括：（1）使用一个共同的花园框架确定与当地适应表型相关的倒位内的区域;（2）全种群选择扫描，以确定是否在倒位断点或倒位内的候选位点处分化最大;以及（3）模拟，以量化条件，在该条件下，反转内的重组抑制是一种可行的进化机制，适应为了实现这些结果，大西洋银鱼将在一个共同的花园实验中收集和饲养，并收集这些个体的表型和全基因组数据进行分析。该研究员还将促进两个关于可重复研究主题的研讨会，重点是生物信息学工作流程，针对STEM领域历史上代表性不足的高年级本科生和早期职业研究生。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为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来支持。

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. Natural environments are often heterogeneous, with strong spatial variation in conditions within a species’ range. Populations within a species gain an advantage by adapting to these differing environments, and such local adaptation can be facilitated by structural variation within an organism’s genome. The Fellow will investigate how structural genomic variation allows populations to adapt to their environments, as well as how these types of variation enable population divergence and speciation. This research is important to understanding the mechanisms involved in the origin and maintenance of biodiversity, and how species may adapt to changing climatic conditions. Through this research, the Fellow will also broaden participation in STEM through mentoring undergraduate students in independent research projects, advocating for open science and reproducible research practices, and training early-career students in open science principles and tools.This research will integrate data from common garden experiments, genomic analyses, and evolutionary modeling to investigate how structural genomic variation—specifically, inversions—facilitate local adaptation in wild populations. It will use the large inversion regions associated with locally adapted phenotypes in the Atlantic silverside (Menidia menidia) as a model system. Key outcomes of this project will include: (1) identifying regions within inversions associated with local adaptation phenotypes using a common garden framework; (2) a population-wide selection scan to determine whether differentiation is greatest at inversion breakpoints or at candidate loci within inversions; and (3) simulations to quantify the conditions within which recombination suppression within inversions is a viable evolutionary mechanism for maintaining local adaptation. To achieve these outcomes, Atlantic silversides will be collected and raised in a common garden experiment, and phenotypic and whole genome data from these individuals will be collected for analyses. The Fellow will additionally facilitate two workshops on the topic of reproducible research, with a focus on bioinformatic workflows, targeted at upper division undergraduate and early career graduate students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in STEM fields.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.