NSF PRFB FY 2023: How does urban environmental heterogeneity and societal inequity shape phenotypic traits in wildlife?

这项行动资助了2023财年的NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，综合研究调查了基因组，环境和表型之间的生命管理相互作用的规则。该研究金支持研究员的研究和培训，以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。这个研究项目将解决城市生活条件的变化，如污染和绿色空间的可用性，如何影响不同社区的野生动物的行为和生理。通过这样做，该项目的结果将说明我们社会中的不平等如何影响城市中其他非人类生物的进化和总体福祉。该研究员将与当地社区合作开展研究，这些社区的社会经济地位与获得STEM资源的机会不平等。因此，该项目不仅提供了一个直接扩大STEM参与的机会，而且还允许研究员作为公平环境政策的倡导者，这将有利于城市社区的人和动物。此外，该研究员将在博物馆和服务不足的学校提供K-12教育外展服务，并利用当地动物行为的知识来人道地缓解居民与野生动物之间的冲突。为了了解城市环境条件的异质性如何影响野生动物，这项研究将评估和比较浣熊的行为和生理（Procyon lotor）在旧金山弗朗西斯科湾区的高收入和低收入社区以及周围的非城市地区。这位研究员将开始通过人道地捕捉浣熊跨越社区，以便标记每个人与微芯片和安全地收集血液和头发样本，这将提供对浣熊生理学的见解（例如，压力）和遗传相关性。该研究员将接受如何处理每一个生物样本和进行相关生理和遗传分析的培训。在所有浣熊被处理和释放后，该研究员将与当地机构和社区成员合作，使用跟踪摄像机对浣熊进行行为观察，并使用拼图和其他测试仪器评估它们的认知能力。总之，这些信息将使研究员能够将浣熊的行为和测试表现与可能受城市环境条件影响的潜在认知和生理机制联系起来。该研究员还将评估浣熊的行为如何从后代的父母那里遗传，以及与当地资源和危险有关的知识是否也可以在每个社区的浣熊之间传播。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, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment, and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. This research project will address how variation in urban living conditions, such as pollution and green space availability, affect the behavior and physiology of wildlife across different neighborhoods. In doing so, the results of this project will illustrate how inequities within our society affect the evolution and general wellbeing of other nonhuman organisms in cities. The fellow will conduct research in collaboration with local communities spanning socioeconomic statuses with unequal access to STEM resources. Thus, this project will not only provide an opportunity to directly broaden participation in STEM, but also allow the fellow to serve as an advocate for equitable environmental policies that will benefit both people and animals across urban neighborhoods. In addition, the fellow will provide K-12 educational outreach at museums and underserved schools, and use knowledge of local animal behavior to humanely mitigate conflict between residents and wildlife.To understand how heterogeneity in urban environmental conditions affects wildlife, this research will evaluate and compare the behavior and physiology of raccoons (Procyon lotor) across high and low income neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in the surrounding nonurban areas. The fellow will begin by humanely capturing raccoons across neighborhoods in order to mark each individual with a microchip and safely collect blood and hair samples, which will provide insights on raccoon physiology (e.g., stress) and genetic relatedness across neighborhoods. The fellow will receive training on how to process each biological sample and conduct the associated physiological and genetic analyses. After all raccoons have been processed and released, the fellow will work in partnership with local agencies and community members to make behavioral observations of raccoons using trail cameras and evaluate their cognitive abilities using puzzles and other testing apparatuses. Together, this information will enable the fellow to link raccoon behavior and performance across tests to underlying cognitive and physiological mechanisms that may be influenced by urban environmental conditions. The fellow will also evaluate how raccoon behavior may be inherited from parents of offspring, and whether knowledge related to local resources and dangers could be transmitted among raccoons within each neighborhood as well.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.