Genotype-Environment variation in heavy metal tolerance

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DESCRIPTION: My career goal is to be a leader in evolutionary ecology as a faculty member at a first-tier research university. To reach this goal, I envision building upon my background in field-based ecological research by pairing it with the pursuit of detailed mechanistic and genetic-network based approaches. The NRSA fellowship could provide me with the opportunity to build upon my ecological skills by developing genetic and genomic tools for an emerging ecological model organism. As a NRSA postdoctoral fellow and eventually as an independent researcher, I want to understand how genotypes vary in their sensitivity to heavy metal toxicity. Heavy metal toxicity has clear medical implications, but is also important for understanding patterns of plant diversity and speciation that track soil chemistry, and is increasingly important for agricultural production in polluted soils. I see this as an area with great research potential and importance.