NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: How Does Sociality Impact Evolution?

这一行动资助了NSF 2023财年生物学博士后研究奖学金，扩大了生物学中代表性不足的群体的参与。该研究金支持一项针对该研究员的研究和培训计划，该计划将增加生物学中代表性不足的群体的参与。它将通过两种方式扩大这些群体的参与：(1)通过实施拨款撰写研讨会，提高美国博士后学者的多样性；(2)通过资助研究员从事研究社会性对进化的影响的新颖研究。社会性--即生活在社会群体中的个体--广泛存在于动物类群中。社会群体的组织或其社会结构决定了哪些群体成员成为繁殖者，从而将他们的基因传递给下一代。因此，社会性可以对种群的基因构成产生相当大的影响，但社会性和进化之间的这种联系仍然没有得到充分的研究。这项研究将利用一个物种--超级八哥--内不同时间和空间的社会性差异，来了解社会性如何影响进化，这是塑造地球上生命多样性的基本过程。这位科学家将使用多学科的方法来研究社会性和进化之间的关系。首先，利用肯尼亚中部一个种群中九组合作繁育的优秀八哥鸟20多年的数据集，这位研究员将研究降雨对迁徙和繁殖的影响导致的社会结构的时间变化如何导致等位基因频率随着时间的变化。接下来，这位研究员将利用横跨全国降雨梯度的八个地点的种群基因组数据，研究社会复杂性的空间差异对同一物种内不同进化过程的相对强度的影响。该项目的更广泛影响旨在帮助揭开为后期研究生和新博士后撰写助学金的“隐藏课程”的神秘面纱，以增加生物学专业中代表性不足的群体在博士后水平上的个人参与。这位研究员的培训将有助于开发一个结合行为生态学和种群基因组学的独立研究计划，以调查社会性，为她下一阶段的学术生涯做准备。这一奖项反映了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。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2023, Broadening Participation of Groups Underrepresented in Biology. The Fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. It will broaden participation of these groups in two ways: (1) by implementing a grant writing workshop that will enhance the diversity of postdoctoral scholars in the US, and (2) by funding the Fellow to engage in novel research investigating the impact of sociality on evolution. Sociality—i.e., individuals living in social groups—is widespread across animal taxa. The organization of a social group, or its social structure, determines which group members become breeders and thus pass their genes onto the next generation. Thus, sociality can have a considerable impact on the genetic makeup of a population, yet this link between sociality and evolution remains understudied. This research will leverage variation in sociality across time and space within one species—the superb starling—to understand how sociality can impact evolution, a fundamental process that shapes the diversity of life on our planet.The Fellow will use a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the relationship between sociality and evolution. First, using a more than 20-year dataset from nine groups of cooperatively breeding superb starlings within a population in central Kenya, the Fellow will examine how temporal variation in social structure, driven by the impact of rainfall on immigration and reproduction, results in changes in allele frequencies over time. Next, using genomic data from populations at eight sites spanning a country-wide rainfall gradient, the Fellow will examine the impact of spatial variation in social complexity on the relative strength of different evolutionary processes within the same species. The project's broader impacts are designed to help demystify the “hidden curriculum” of grant-writing for late-stage graduate students and new postdocs, to increase participation of individuals from groups underrepresented in biology at the postdoctoral level. The Fellow’s training will help develop an independent research program combining behavioral ecology and population genomics to investigate sociality in preparation for the next stage of her academic career.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.