Conference: Evolution, physiology and biomechanics of insect flight

公众奖摘要本会议奖支持在2024年1月的综合与比较生物学学会年会上举行的关于昆虫飞行的研讨会和相关研讨会。飞行是昆虫的一种重要适应，使它们能够迁移和授粉，因此对于昆虫作为益虫和害虫的作用至关重要。然而，关于昆虫飞行还有许多未知数，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行昆虫，以及如何管理飞行害虫。研究昆虫飞行的问题需要综合分子、生物化学、生理学、生态学和生物力学的观点。该奖项通过汇集来自不同背景和特征的科学家以及来自分子进化，生物力学和生理学等一系列生物学分支学科的科学家作为研讨会发言人来满足这些需求。此外，还为一个讲习班、11份出版物和社区建设活动提供支助。将为参加补充课程的学员提供旅行奖励，并将建立一个允许学生培训交流的网络。将创建一个数据库和电子邮件列表服务器，以连接跨领域，培训水平和机构的研究人员。促进多样化的科学劳动力将发生作为学员将参与研讨会的筹备，执行和社区建设的各个方面。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来加强。昆虫的无与伦比的多样性通常归因于大约4亿年前有翼（翼）昆虫谱系中动力飞行的进化，提供了从不适合居住的地点传播，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，包括了解昆虫如何进化飞行，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枝特异性变体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移的成本，生活史和飞行肌肉可塑性之间的关系，以及飞行力学和飞行肌肉成本之间的关系。在生物力学方面，对昆虫如何在复杂的湍流环境中转向和飞行，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缺乏深入的了解。支持的研讨会将汇集研究进化，生态学，生理学和飞行生物力学的研究人员，以刺激这些领域的整合，以回答有关飞行如何以及为什么在昆虫中出现和维持的问题。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调查人员，将建立一个跨学科的社区，这将提高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NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

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.