Conference: Evolution, physiology and biomechanics of insect flight

该奖项将于2024年1月在综合与比较生物学学会年会上支持一个关于昆虫飞行的研讨会和相关研讨会。飞行是昆虫的一项关键适应能力，使它们能够迁徙和授粉，因此对昆虫作为益虫和害虫的角色至关重要。然而，关于昆虫飞行仍有许多未知之处，限制了对飞行进化起源的理解，气候变化等生态条件如何影响飞虫，以及如何管理飞虫害虫。回答有关昆虫飞行的问题需要从分子、生化、生理、生态和生物力学的角度进行整合。该奖项通过汇集来自不同背景和特征的科学家，以及来自包括分子进化、生物力学和生理学在内的一系列生物学分支学科的科学家，作为研讨会的演讲者，来解决这些需求。此外，正在支助一个讲习班、11种出版物和社区建设活动。将向参加补充课程的学员提供旅费奖励，并将建立一个允许学生交换培训的网络。将建立一个数据库和电子邮件列表，将不同领域、不同培训水平和不同机构的研究人员联系起来。由于受训者将参与研讨会的筹备、执行和社区建设的各个方面，因此将促进科学工作队伍的多样化。生物科学的多样性和包容性将通过突出历史上被排除在科学之外的群体的研究而得到加强。昆虫无与伦比的多样性通常归因于大约4亿年前翼虫（有翼）昆虫谱系的动力飞行进化，提供了从不适合居住的地方扩散，寻找配偶，获取资源和逃离捕食者的好处。尽管飞行对昆虫至关重要，但仍存在许多问题，包括对昆虫如何进化飞行的理解，遗传差异如何转化为飞行形态、生理和行为的功能差异，以及飞行形态和生理的进化支特异性变异如何与生态条件相关。在生理学方面，许多领域仍然知之甚少，包括昆虫如何管理迁徙成本，生活史与飞行肌肉可塑性之间的关系，以及飞行力学与飞行肌肉成本之间的关系。在生物力学方面，缺乏对昆虫如何在复杂湍流环境中操纵和飞行，飞行的神经感觉和空气动力学机制以及能量储存的位置和动力学的扎实理解。本次研讨会将汇集研究飞行进化、生态学、生理学和生物力学的研究人员，以促进这些领域的整合，以回答有关昆虫飞行产生和维持的方式和原因的问题。通过汇集来自不同学科的研究人员，包括对昆虫飞行有共同兴趣的早期职业研究人员，将建立一个跨学科的社区，这将增强我们克服障碍的能力，并在综合生物学中产生新的研究方向。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。

Public Award AbstractThis conference award supports a symposium and associated workshop on insect flight at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in January 2024. Flight is a key adaptation of insects, enabling their capacities to migrate and pollinate, and thus is critical to the roles of insects both as beneficial animals and pests. However, there are many remaining unknowns about insect flight, limiting the understanding of the evolutionary origins of flight, how ecological conditions such as climate change will affect flying insects, and how to manage flying insect pests. Answering questions about insect flight requires an integration of molecular, biochemical, physiological, ecological, and biomechanical perspectives. The award addresses these needs by bringing together scientists from diverse backgrounds and characteristics, and from a range of biological subdisciplines including molecular evolution, biomechanics and physiology, as symposium speakers. In addition, a workshop, eleven publications, and community building activities are being supported. Travel awards will be provided for trainees in the complementary sessions, and a network that will allow for student training exchanges will be created. A database and email listserv will be created to connect researchers across fields, training levels, and institutions. Promotion of a diverse scientific workforce will occur as trainees will be involved in all aspects of the preparation, execution, and community building for the symposium. Diversity and inclusion in biological sciences will be enhanced by featuring research from groups historically excluded from science. The unparalleled diversity of insects is often attributed to the evolution of powered flight in the Pterygote (winged) insect lineage around 400 million years ago, providing benefits of dispersal from inhospitable sites, mate finding, resource acquisition, and escape from predators. Despite the critical importance of flight to insects, many questions remain, including an understanding of how insects evolved flight, how genetic differences translate to functional differences in flight morphology, physiology, and behavior, and how clade-specific variants in flight morphology and physiology are related to ecological conditions. In terms of physiology, many areas remain poorly understood, including how insects manage the costs of migration, the relationship between life history and flight muscle plasticity, and the relationship between flight mechanics and flight muscle cost. In terms of biomechanics, a solid understanding of how insects steer and fly in complex, turbulent environments, the neurosensory and aerodynamic mechanisms of flight, and the location and dynamics of energy storage are lacking. The supported symposium will bring together researchers working on the evolution, ecology, physiology, and biomechanics of flight to stimulate integration of these fields to answer questions about how and why flight arose and is maintained in insects. By bringing together researchers, including early-career investigators, from different disciplines who share an interest in insect flight, an interdisciplinary community will be built that will enhance our ability to overcome obstacles and generate new research directions in integrative 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.