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

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。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。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有机体基因组中的结构变化来促进。这位研究员将研究结构性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。这项研究对于理解生物多样性起源和维持的机制，以及物种如何适应变化的气候条件具有重要意义。通过这项研究，该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，以及培训职业生涯早期的学生开放科学原则和工具，来扩大对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，以调查结构基因组变异-特别是倒置-如何促进野生种群的局部适应。它将使用与大西洋银边海域局部适应表型相关的大逆温区作为模型系统。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局部适应表型相关的倒位内的区域；(2)全种群选择扫描，以确定在倒位断裂点或倒位内的候选座位上分化最大；以及(3)模拟以量化倒位内的重组抑制是维持局部适应的可行进化机制的条件。为了实现这些结果，将在一个普通的花园实验中收集和饲养大西洋银鱼，并收集这些个体的表型和全基因组数据进行分析。此外，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，目标是来自STEM领域历史上代表性不足的背景的高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. 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.