NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2022: Disentangling the diversity of synovial joint form and function

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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. Vertebrate animals display an exceptional diversity of joint shapes and motions, ranging from the jaw joints that enable snakes to engulf massive prey to the wing joints that enable birds and bats to take flight. This research aims to understand when and how these differences in joint shape arise as an animal grows, and how differences in joint motion enable animals to successfully occupy habitats across the globe. The fellow will take advantage of new technologies for visualizing joint formation in embryos and for measuring joint motion from juvenile and adult animals to explore these questions. The project will also result in educational materials for use in K-12 classrooms.Because birds – the most speciose group of living tetrapod animals – use their hindlimbs to interact with a wide variety of habitats in behaviors such as walking, wading, and perching, they offer an ideal focal group for this work. The fellow will integrate techniques and perspectives from developmental biology, biomechanics, and computational modeling to (1) investigate the pre-hatching origins of diversity in avian hindlimb joint morphology, (2) characterize the post-hatching connection between avian hindlimb joint morphology and function, and (3) develop a predictive model of avian hindlimb function, within the context of locomotor ecology. This work will thus directly shed light on functional diversification in the modern avian radiation, but will also translate experimental data into a predictive model of the relationships among joint form, function, and environmental adaptation that will be transferable to other groups across the vertebrate tree. While engaging in this research, the fellow will receive training in embryological imaging and motion comparison.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.