ORCC: Migratory organisms in a changing world: from the molecular basis of migratory timing to models predicting the effects of specific conservation strategies.

动物调整它们的许多行为以适应环境的特征。气候变化正在影响这种同步，这种不匹配将对我们的生态系统产生连锁效应。该项目将研究鸣禽的迁徙时间和资源可用性之间的联系。繁殖地的资源（例如，对养育后代很重要的昆虫）每年都提前达到峰值。鸣禽可能无法对这些变化做出反应，从而改变它们的迁徙时间，提前到达繁殖地。这种不匹配不仅引起了研究人员的关注；联邦和州野生动物机构也在努力为这一现象的下游后果做准备。因此，这个项目是与野生动物机构合作设计的。研究结果将有助于决策者评估现有的保护政策，并测试新的迁徙鸣禽管理计划。此外，还计划在迁徙飞行路线上开展地方外联活动（例如，将北美和南美的儿童联系起来的关于迁徙的教育方案）。该项目还将招募STEM中代表性不足的群体，并将其纳入研究和推广计划。可塑性和适应性可以使迁移者提前迁移时间，但对这些机制及其分子基础的直接估计很少，而且仅限于少数邻近种群。该项目将开始利用来自多个学科（如动物运动生态学、基因组学和计算机建模）的最先进工具和来自广泛地理范围的数据来填补这一知识空白。具体来说，(1)可塑性和(2)对迁移时间的适应性将被估计，(3)这一特性的分子基础将被检查。然后，对可塑性和适应性的估计将被整合到预测种群如何应对气候变化的模型中，并为这一群体提出具体的保护策略。为这项工作选择的物种已经在迁徙时间上表现出了进步，但这些进步在更北的种群中繁殖得更弱。这种趋势可能与这样一个事实有关，即北方繁殖者繁殖地的环境条件难以预测，这是该项目将解决的一个问题。该项目的结果将与许多领域相关（例如，遗传学，行为和进化），预测框架可用于其他系统，特征和环境变化。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。

Animals time many of their behaviors to coincide with features of the environment. Climate change is affecting this synchrony and this mismatch will have cascading effects on our ecosystems. This project will examine the connection between migratory timing and resource availability in a songbird. Resources on the breeding grounds (e.g., insects important for raising young) are peaking earlier each year. Songbirds may not be able to respond to these changes, modifying the timing of their migration to arrive on the breeding grounds earlier. This mismatch is not only of concern to researchers; federal and state wildlife agencies are also trying to prepare for the downstream consequences of this phenomenon. Accordingly, this project was designed in collaboration with wildlife agencies. Results will help policy makers assess existing protection policies and test new management plans for migratory songbirds. Local outreach along the migratory flyway is also planned (e.g., educational programming on migration that will connect children across North and South America). Underrepresented groups in STEM will also be recruited in this project and included in both the research and outreach plans.Plasticity and adaptation could allow migrants to advance their migratory timing, but direct estimates of these mechanisms and their molecular basis are rare and restricted to a small number of proximate populations. This project will begin filling this knowledge gap, using state-of-the-art tools from several disciplines (e.g., animal movement ecology, genomics and computer modeling) and data from a broad geographic scale. Specifically, (1) plasticity and (2) adaptation for migratory timing will be estimated and (3) the molecular basis of this trait will be examined. Estimates of plasticity and adaptation will then be (4) integrated into models predicting how populations will respond to climate change and specific conservation strategies being proposed for this group. The species chosen for this work already shows advances in their migratory timing, but these advances are weaker in populations that breed further north. This trend could relate to the fact that environmental conditions on the breeding grounds are less predictable for northern breeders and is a question this project will address. Results from this project will be relevant to many fields (e.g., genetics, behavior and evolution) and the predictive framework can be used for other systems, traits and environmental variation.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.