Collaborative Research: IRES Track I: Odonata morphological adaptations to environmental gradients in Ghana: integrating student research in the field, museum, and laboratory

合作研究：IRES 第一轨：蜻蜓目形态对加纳环境梯度的适应：整合学生在现场、博物馆和实验室的研究

• 批准号: 2246257
• 负责人: Lara LaDage
• 金额: $ 28.04万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-06-01 至 2026-05-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2246257&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; IRES; Track; Odonata

Global climate change has had profound impacts on food and water availability, habitat availability, and infrastructure vulnerability, while threatening biodiversity across all ecological scales. In this collaborative IRES project, researchers will study the response and adaptation of dragonflies in different climactic habitats, with the goal of broadening our understanding of the effects of regional and global environmental change on biodiversity. The project will recruit 18 U.S. student researchers to work on projects that are critically important to document and preserve biodiversity and understand the adaptations that allow successful colonization during rapid environmental change. Students will be recruited from traditionally underrepresented groups to build capacity, thereby increasing inclusion, equity, and innovation in the broader research community. Further, students from both the U.S. and Ghana will be mentored by a diverse, interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, and international team, gaining a high degree of professional and personal development through exposure to a variety of expertise at different types of institutions and in different research contexts. Fostering international collaborations is a necessary step for worldwide conservation of biodiversity due to climate change, and this program will facilitate such an endeavor, as the research is a collaboration among three institutions, The Pennsylvania State University, the American Museum of Natural History, and the international host institution University of Cape Coast in Ghana. This collaboration will allow us to leverage student and faculty capacities built over the course of the project to extend to other countries that share similar ecological concerns. West Africa is thought to be one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to the effects of anthropogenic environmental change and subsequent loss in biodiversity. However, there remains a paucity of information on insect species biodiversity and their distribution in the region, how rapid environmental change affects those assemblages, and the morphological adaptations that may allow insects to adapt to a changing environment. This project will exploit naturally occurring climate ecozones within a small geographic range in Ghana to assess the effects of environmental change, both natural and anthropogenic, on odonate biodiversity and community structuring. Additionally, the project will assess the wing and neural adaptations that contribute to successful colonization of diverse habitats, which may predict insect survival and colonization in a rapidly changing environment. In view of Ghana’s rapid habitat losses and quickly changing landscape, this project offers the first comprehensive faunal studies for databasing, future monitoring, and conservation of the undocumented and underrepresented odonata species of Ghana. Leveraging methodology from material sciences and neurobiology, this project also will link phenotypic variation in morphological attributes (e.g., optical properties, durability of wings, mushroom bodies) with variation in environmental factors across the three ecozones of Ghana. Doing so will elucidate which morphological characteristics allow successful colonization of different habitat types. Overall, this project will extend our knowledge on the effects of environmental change on odonata distributions, as well as the morphological adaptations that correlate with variation in environmental factors.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.

全球气候变化对食物和水的可获得性、栖息地的可获得性和基础设施的脆弱性产生了深远的影响，同时威胁到所有生态规模的生物多样性。在这个合作的IRES项目中，研究人员将研究蜻蜓在不同气候栖息地的反应和适应，目的是拓宽我们对区域和全球环境变化对生物多样性影响的理解。该项目将招募18名美国学生研究人员，从事对记录和保护生物多样性至关重要的项目，并了解在快速环境变化期间允许成功殖民的适应。学生将从传统上代表性不足的群体中招收，以建设能力，从而在更广泛的研究社区中增加包容性、公平性和创新性。此外，来自美国和加纳的学生将接受多元化、跨学科、多机构和国际团队的指导，通过接触不同类型机构和不同研究背景的各种专业知识，获得高度的专业和个人发展。促进国际合作是全球因气候变化而保护生物多样性的必要步骤，该计划将促进这一努力，因为这项研究是宾夕法尼亚州立大学、美国自然历史博物馆和国际主办机构加纳开普敦海岸大学三个机构之间的合作。这一合作将使我们能够利用在项目过程中建立的学生和教师的能力，将其扩展到其他有类似生态问题的国家。西非被认为是世界上最容易受到人为环境变化和随后的生物多样性丧失影响的地区之一。然而，关于昆虫物种多样性及其在该地区的分布、环境变化对这些组合的快速影响以及可能使昆虫适应不断变化的环境的形态适应的信息仍然很少。该项目将在加纳的一个小地理范围内开发自然形成的气候生态区，以评估自然和人为环境变化对齿齿动物生物多样性和群落结构的影响。此外，该项目还将评估有助于不同栖息地成功定居的翅膀和神经适应，这可能预测昆虫在快速变化的环境中的生存和定居。鉴于加纳栖息地的迅速丧失和迅速变化的地貌，该项目提供了第一个全面的动物群研究，用于建立数据库、未来监测和保护加纳未记录和未被充分代表的齿形目物种。利用材料科学和神经生物学的方法，该项目还将把加纳三个生态区的形态属性(例如，光学特性、翅膀的耐用性、蘑菇体)的表型差异与环境因素的差异联系起来。这样做将阐明哪些形态特征允许成功地殖民不同的栖息地类型。总体而言，该项目将扩大我们对环境变化对齿形目分布的影响，以及与环境因素变化相关的形态适应的知识。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。