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

该行动资助了美国国家科学基金会2023财年生物学博士后研究奖学金，研究基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该奖学金支持将以创新方式对生活规则领域作出贡献的研究员的研究和培训。该研究项目将研究城市生活条件的变化，如污染和绿色空间的可用性，如何影响不同社区野生动物的行为和生理。在这样做的过程中，这个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，跨越社会经济地位，获得STEM资源的机会不平等。因此，该项目不仅将提供直接扩大STEM参与的机会，而且还将允许研究员作为公平环境政策的倡导者，这将使城市社区的人和动物都受益。此外，他还将在博物馆和服务欠缺的学校提供K-12教育推广服务，并利用对当地动物行为的了解，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，本研究将评估和比较旧金山湾区高收入社区和低收入社区以及周边非城市地区的浣熊（Procyon lotor）的行为和生理。该研究员将从人道地捕获浣熊开始，以便用微芯片标记每个个体，并安全地收集血液和毛发样本，这将提供有关浣熊生理学（例如，压力）和遗传相关性的见解。该研究员将接受培训，学习如何处理每个生物样本并进行相关的生理和遗传分析。在所有的浣熊都被处理和释放后，这位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设备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，以及有关当地资源和危险的知识是否可以在每个社区的浣熊之间传播。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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.