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

这项行动资助了2023财年的NSF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。该研究金支持研究员的一项研究和培训计划，该计划将增加在生物学领域代表性不足的群体的参与。它将以两种方式扩大这些群体的参与：（1）通过实施资助写作研讨会，这将提高美国博士后学者的多样性，以及（2）通过资助研究员从事调查社会性对进化的影响的新研究。社会性-即，生活在社会群体中的个体-在动物分类群中广泛存在。社会群体的组织或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给下一代。因此，社会性可以对种群的遗传构成产生相当大的影响，但社会性和进化之间的联系仍然没有得到充分的研究。这项研究将利用一个物种（超级椋鸟）的社会性在时间和空间上的变化来了解社会性如何影响进化，这是一个塑造地球上生命多样性的基本过程。研究员将使用多学科方法来研究社会性和进化之间的关系。首先，使用超过20年的数据集，从9组合作繁殖极好的椋鸟在肯尼亚中部的人口，研究员将研究如何在社会结构的时间变化，由降雨对移民和繁殖的影响驱动，结果随着时间的推移在等位基因频率的变化。接下来，研究员将利用跨越全国降雨梯度的八个地点的人口基因组数据，研究社会复杂性的空间变化对同一物种内不同进化过程的相对强度的影响。该项目更广泛的影响旨在帮助揭开后期研究生和新博士后撰写资助的“隐藏课程”的神秘面纱，以增加来自生物学博士后水平代表性不足的群体的个人参与。该研究员的培训将有助于开发一个结合行为生态学和人口基因组学的独立研究项目，以调查社会性，为她的学术生涯的下一阶段做准备。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值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.