NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2022: Innate immunity could buffer extinction risk in genetically compromised populations

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This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2022, 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. The long term survival of a species is thought to be associated with the genetic diversity of that species. In fact, current conservation efforts for endangered and threatened species work to maintain genetic diversity within populations in the hopes of increasing their chances for long term survival. However, recent studies have challenged this idea. The fellow seeks to understand how the loss of genetic diversity affects the survival of a species by focusing on the immune system, which allows organisms to fight off disease. The immune system can be viewed as a complex system that may shield against losses of diversity at specific genes. The work generated here will contribute to the understanding of how threatened and endangered species persist in the face of a rapidly changing environment and will help clarify genetic management plans aimed at their recovery.The fellow will answer the proposed questions through bioinformatic and lab experiments focused on Gila trout, (Oncorhynchus gilae), a threatened fish species that has undergone numerous events leading to significant loss of genetic diversity within its populations. Diversity loss has impacted the major histocompatibility locus of the Gila trout, potentially reducing its ability to respond to pathogens via classical adaptive immune responses. The fellow will use the Gila trout genome, tissue archives, and gene sequence libraries to identify, annotate, and evaluate the diversity of innate immune gene families to understand if innate immunity may compensate for reduced adaptive immune capabilities. This will also establish how these immune genes are evolving, and the effects of selection acting upon them. Immune challenge experiments will quantify the magnitude of the overall immune response in Gila trout and the role of innate immune receptors in this species during infection. These two approaches will determine whether overall genetic loss can be compensated via expansion of broadly unspecific arms of the immune system and allow long-term persistence. The fellow will also perform multiple outreach projects including presentations on the importance of habitat conservation, leading undergraduates in museum science programs, and presenting the results of the fellow’s research to relevant conservation agencies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluationThis 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.