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.

该行动为2023财年的生物学生物学研究金奖学金提供了一项NSF植物基因组研究奖学金。该奖学金支持该研究员的主机实验室研究和培训计划，该研究员还提出了扩大生物学参与计划的计划。萨曼莎·斯诺德格拉斯（Samantha Snodgrass）这项研究金的研究和培训计划的标题是“玉米作为生物文化共同进化的人类驯化”。奖学金的主持机构是加利福尼亚大学戴维斯分校，赞助科学家是Drs。 Jeffrey Ross-ibarra和Graham Coop博士。植物驯化和农业是过去10，000年人类文明的主要创新。驯化会改变植物如何使人类受益，这可能导致严格的依赖性。例如，玉米无法在人类培养之外生存，但在极度不同的环境中遍布全球，因为它是人类的重要食物来源。尽管考古学和遗传学研究已经揭示了玉米发生何时何地发生何时何地发生，但尚不清楚玉米如何与早期农民社区一起移动，以及哪些特征在此过程中很重要。该项目使用人群遗传学来创建在玉米和其他农作物中解决这些长期存在问题的方法。答案可能会阐明为什么某些物种难以驯化，并将指导为驯化新作物的努力。培训目标包括在统计人群遗传学上获得专业知识，用于管理大型，跨学科团队的专业发展以及与进化生物学家，人类学家和UC Davis的中美洲食品学者建立专业联系，以促进未来的合作。更广泛的影响包括开发专注于向生物学学生介绍人口遗传学领域的公共本科课程，以及在测序和特质测量工作中大数据开放的可能性。鉴于农民和家人之间的密切关系，一些研究人员提出了驯化的理论模型，作为生物文化协同进化。当前研究此类系统进化的方法通常集中在一个物种上。该项目将通过将人类和玉米视为共识物种来扩展这些方法。具体而言，项目目标包括1）估算联合混合图，以更好地了解玉米与早期农民社区之间的移动以及特征选择的时机和选择力量； 2）估计在玉米中评分的200多个特征的多基因选择的特征，并将它们放在混合图内的特定时间段内，以显示在考古记录中未保留的多基因性状的选择模式，但对适应时间很重要，例如开花时间； 3）将结果和方法应用于对其他美国驯养者的研究，以测试玉米中发现的驯化模式的普遍性。所有脚本将在GitHub上公开可用，并与出版物相关联。所有基因组数据都将来自或在NCBI上提供和/或cyverse和/或cyverse的特征数据，将在数据平台（例如Cyverse和/或Dryad）上获得。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的审查标准来通过评估来获得支持的。