NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: Assessment of interactions between nectarivorous birds and flowering plants to investigate pollination loss in Hawaiian forests

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。该研究员将调查夏威夷森林的授粉损失，那里经历了物种灭绝和非本地物种入侵的高比率。例如，夏威夷群岛的大多数本地花蜜喂养鸟类已经灭绝，依赖这些鸟类授粉的植物可能会因为失去鸟类伴侣而面临灭绝的风险。该研究员将密切研究鸟类与植物的相互作用，使用电影和3D扫描鸟喙和花管形状，以预测鸟类传粉者损失对夏威夷植物的影响。为了扩大参与，该研究员将进行调查和分析，以了解并开始解决LGTBQIA+生物学家在STEM职业生涯中面临的障碍，并让夏威夷土著人参与研究。花粉交换通常依赖于与食蜜动物（以下简称食蜜动物）的互利互动，食蜜动物在植物之间传递花粉，同时收集糖的奖励。食蜜动物和植物可能共同进化，表现出匹配的功能特征，如耦合鸟喙和花管形状，增加其相互作用的特异性和益处。然而，当性状不匹配时，物种可能无法相互作用，或者相互作用可能对植物产生负面影响。夏威夷半边莲（桔梗科），这与夏威夷的花蜜食性鸟类共同进化，可能是授粉有限的，由于鸟类物种的损失。然而，历史上的植物传粉者的相互作用在很大程度上是未知的，它是不确定的，是否现存的蜜源动物（本地和引进）可能会通过维持授粉过程来补偿鸟类的排斥。因此，需要一个机制模型来识别植物-蜜源物种配对的相互作用结果。该研究员将模拟鸟类和花卉的三维（3D）数字模型的相互作用，以研究3D中导出的性状匹配指标如何与野生影片相互作用中的花粉转移联系起来。然后，研究员将预测潜在灭绝和现存相互作用的结果，以估计互利共生损失，并通过种子活力测试验证模型。此外，研究员将进行社会科学研究，以解开生物学专业LGBTQIA+科学家的障碍。该研究将涉及对学术界，政府和工业界专业水平的LGTBQIA+生物学家的调查，以及旨在增加LGTBQIA+代表性的工作组，明确在博士后水平。该研究员还将启动一个研究培训计划，为夏威夷土著人追求的职业生涯在生物学。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

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. The Fellow will investigate pollination loss in Hawaiian forests, which have experienced high rates of species extinction and invasion by non-native species. For instance, most native nectar-feeding birds in the Hawaiian Islands have gone extinct, and plants that depend on these birds for pollination may be at risk for extinction from the loss of their bird partners. The Fellow will closely examine bird-plant interactions, using film and 3D scans of bird bills and flower tube shapes, to predict the impacts of bird pollinator loss on Hawaiian plants. To broaden participation, the fellow will conduct surveys and analysis to understand and start to resolve barriers that LGTBQIA+ biologists face in STEM careers and involve native Hawaiians in the research. Pollination often depends on mutualistic interactions with nectar-feeding animals (hereafter nectarivores), in which nectarivores transfer pollen between plants while collecting the sugary reward. Nectarivores and plants may coevolve to exhibit matched functional traits, such as coupled bird bill and floral tube shapes, increasing the specificity and benefits of their interactions. When traits are mismatched, however, species may fail to interact, or interactions may negatively impact plants. Hawaiian lobelioids (Campanulaceae), which have coevolved with nectarivorous Hawaiian birds, may be pollination-limited due to bird species loss. Nevertheless, historic plant-pollinator interactions are largely unknown, and it is uncertain whether extant nectarivores (native and introduced) may potentially compensate for bird extinctions by maintaining pollination processes. Thus, a mechanistic model is needed for identifying interaction outcomes for plant-nectarivore species pairings. The Fellow will simulate interactions from three-dimensional (3D) digital models of birds and flowers, in order to investigate how trait-matching metrics derived in 3D can be linked to pollen transfer in wild-filmed interactions. The Fellow will then predict outcomes for potential extinct and extant interactions to estimate mutualism loss and validate models with tests of seed viability. Further, the Fellow will conduct social science research to disentangle barriers to LGBTQIA+ scientists in biology professions. The research will involve a survey for LGTBQIA+ biologists across professional levels in academia, government, and industry, and work groups designed to increase LGTBQIA+ representation, explicitly at the postdoctoral level. The Fellow will also launch a research training program for native Hawaiians pursuing careers in biology.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.