NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: Human Domestication of Maize as Bio-cultural Coevolution

美国国家科学基金会生物学博士后奖学金：人类驯化玉米作为生物文化协同进化

• 批准号: 2305694
• 负责人: Samantha Snodgrass
• 金额: $ 24.9万
• 依托单位: Snodgrass, Samantha
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-01-01 至 2026-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2305694&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Postdoctoral; Fellowship; Biology; Human

This action funds an NSF Plant Genome Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2023. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Samantha Snodgrass is "Human Domestication of Maize as Bio-cultural Coevolution". The host institution for the fellowship is the University of California (UC) Davis and the sponsoring scientists are Drs. Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and Dr. Graham Coop.Plant domestication and agriculture are key innovations underlying the past 10,000 years of human civilization. Domestication alters how plants benefit humans, which can result in tight dependencies. For example, maize cannot survive outside of human cultivation, yet is planted across the globe in extremely different environments because it is a vital food source for humans. While archaeology and genetic research have revealed much about when and where domestication of maize occurred, it is unclear how maize was moved with and among early farmer communities and which traits were important early versus later in the process. This project uses population genetics to create methods addressing these long-standing questions in maize and other crops. Answers may shed light on why some species are hard to domesticate and will guide efforts to domesticate new crops. Training objectives include gaining expertise in statistical population genetics, professional development for managing large, interdisciplinary teams and establishing professional ties with evolutionary biologists, anthropologists, and Mesoamerican foodway scholars at UC Davis to facilitate future collaboration. Broader impacts include developing publicly available undergraduate curricula focused on introducing biology students to the field of population genetics and the possibilities opened by big data in both sequencing and trait-measuring efforts. Given the close relationship between farmers and domesticates, several researchers have proposed theoretical models of domestication as bio-cultural coevolution. Current methods to investigate evolution in such systems typically focus on a single species. This project will expand upon those approaches by treating humans and maize as coevolving species. Specifically, project objectives include 1) estimating joint admixture graphs to better understand how maize moved with and among early farmer communities and the timing and strength of selection on traits; 2) estimating signatures of polygenic selection across 200+ traits scored in maize and placing them at specific time periods within the admixture graph to show selection patterns on polygenic traits not retained in the archeological record but important to adaptation such as flowering time; and, 3) applying the results and methods to the study of other American domesticates to test the generality of domestication patterns found in maize. All scripts will be publicly available on GitHub and associated with a publication. All genomic data will come from or be made available on NCBI and/or CyVerse and aggregated trait data will be available on a data platform such as CyVerse and/or Dryad.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.

这项行动为2023财年的NSF植物基因组博士后生物学研究奖学金提供资金。该研究金支持研究员在东道实验室的研究和培训计划，研究员还提出了扩大生物学参与的计划。这项研究和培训计划的标题是“人类驯化玉米作为生物文化共同进化”。该奖学金的主办机构是加州大学戴维斯分校，赞助科学家是杰弗里·罗斯-伊瓦拉博士和格雷厄姆·库珀博士。植物驯化和农业是过去一万年人类文明的关键创新。驯化改变了植物如何造福人类，这可能导致紧密的依赖性。例如，玉米不能在人类种植之外生存，但却在地球仪的极端不同的环境中种植，因为它是人类的重要食物来源。虽然考古学和遗传学研究已经揭示了玉米驯化发生的时间和地点，但尚不清楚玉米是如何与早期农民社区一起移动的，以及在这个过程的早期和后期，哪些性状是重要的。该项目使用群体遗传学来创建解决玉米和其他作物中这些长期存在的问题的方法。答案可能会阐明为什么有些物种很难驯化，并将指导驯化新作物的努力。培训目标包括获得统计群体遗传学方面的专业知识，管理大型跨学科团队的专业发展，并与加州大学戴维斯分校的进化生物学家，人类学家和中美洲食物之路学者建立专业联系，以促进未来的合作。更广泛的影响包括开发公开的本科课程，重点是向生物学学生介绍群体遗传学领域，以及大数据在测序和特征测量工作中开辟的可能性。鉴于农民和驯化者之间的密切关系，一些研究人员提出了驯化作为生物文化协同进化的理论模型。目前研究此类系统中进化的方法通常集中在单个物种上。该项目将通过将人类和玉米视为共同进化的物种来扩展这些方法。具体而言，项目目标包括：1）估计联合混合图，以更好地了解玉米如何与早期农民社区一起移动以及在早期农民社区之间移动，以及性状选择的时间和强度; 2）估计200多个多基因选择的特征在玉米中评分的性状，并将它们置于混合图中的特定时间段，以显示考古记录中未保留的多基因性状的选择模式但重要的适应，如开花时间;和，3）应用的结果和方法的研究，其他美国驯化，以测试驯化模式的普遍性，发现在玉米。所有脚本都将在GitHub上公开，并与发布相关联。所有基因组数据将来自NCBI和/或CyVerse，或在NCBI和/或CyVerse上提供，聚合性状数据将在CyVerse和/或Dryad等数据平台上提供。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知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。