PIRE: Golondrinas de las Americas: Integrated Pan-American Research and Training in Organisms and Environments

0730180 WinklerPIRE：Golondrinas de las Americas：泛美生物和环境综合研究和培训该项目开发了一个名为Golondrinas de las Americas的研究人员网络。 它利用了专业和学生研究人员的现有合作，他们在西半球超过35个地点研究高度易处理的Tachycineta燕子，允许对有关全球规模生态模式的众多长期假设进行前所未有的分辨率和功率测试。除了建立一个可持续的知识联系的专业科学家网络，它促进了美国和东道国学生在这些网站的培训，包括内置的国际互动机制和学生主导的研究的支持。 该项目正在调查窝卵数纬度差异的原因，这是一种发生在许多其他鸟类中的基本模式，但从未在大量地点进行过全面调查。该研究正在评估四组环境和生物假设，因为它们影响生活史及其与纬度的联系。用统计混合效应模型进行的测试将利用大量独立的地点，这些地点沿横跨阿拉斯加、穿过赤道到火地岛的梯度沿着有着广泛不同的环境条件。合作设计和实施的实验将被用来检查最强的关联和区分机械/生态和适应/历史的解释，包括（但不限于）巢杯温度和育雏大小的操纵。将通过使用这些鸟类现有的强大的繁殖力，以及在该系统中应用PI开发的技术（便携式数字烛光灯，热数据记录仪，昆虫猎物标准化采样等）来加强分析。该项目为来自不同文化背景的大量美国本科生和研究生提供国际实地和实验室研究经验，促进外国研究人员和学生之间的合作，并产生持续的研究计划。一批敬业的双语美国本科实习生正在被招募并接受实地方法的培训，同时他们在由一名更有经验的美国学生和两名东道国同行组成的协作四重奏中工作。除了测试核心假设外，这些团队还收集了对了解气候变化对鸟类及其昆虫猎物的影响至关重要的数据。 在每一个活跃的培训地点举办的讲习班以及在国家和国际会议上举办的圆桌会议、讲习班和专题讨论会将向所有感兴趣的生物学家开放，无论其对分类学的兴趣如何，从而扩大该项目的知识范围。Golondrinas站点将作为希望研究整个美洲其他分类群的比较生物学家的切入点。该项目的所有活动和研究结果将通过康奈尔鸟类学实验室的完善的网络和公共宣传活动和基础设施进行传播。 该项目涉及基本的生态问题，由于其规模，需要通过广泛的国际研究人员网络进行测试。通过这些互动，它创造了一个可持续的和协同的研究合作之间的生物学家来自许多国家和培养大量的美国和外国学生在未来的合作科学事业的领导。这个项目是由国际科学与工程办公室（OISE）与环境生物学（DEB）的共同资助。

0730180 WinklerPIRE: Golondrinas de las Americas: Integrated Pan-American Research and Training in Organisms and Environments This project develops a network of researchers called Golondrinas de las Americas. It leverages an existing collaboration of professional and student researchers who study highly tractable Tachycineta swallows at more than 35 sites spanning the Western Hemisphere, allowing tests of unprecedented resolution and power on a multitude of long-standing hypotheses about global-scale ecological patterns. In addition to creating a sustainable network of intellectually linked professional scientists, it fosters the training of US and host-country students at these sites, including built-in mechanisms for international interaction and the support of student-led research. This project is investigating the causes of latitudinal differences in clutch size, a fundamental pattern that occurs in many other birds but which has never been comprehensively investigated across a large number of sites. The research is evaluating four clusters of environmental and organismal hypotheses as they affect life histories and their linkage, in turn, to latitude. Tests with statistical mixed effect models will take advantage of the large number of independent sites, which have widely varying environmental conditions along a gradient spanning Alaska through the equator to Tierra del Fuego. Collaboratively designed and implemented experiments will be used to examine the strongest associations and distinguish between mechanistic/ecological and adaptive/historical interpretations, including (but not limited to) manipulations of nest-cup temperature and brood-size. Analysis will be strengthened by the use of existing robust phylogeny for these birds, and the applications of technology developed by the PIs in this system (portable digital candlers, thermal data loggers, standardized sampling of insect prey, etc.). This project is providing international field and laboratory research experience to a large number of US undergraduate and graduate students from diverse cultural backgrounds, and promoting collaborations among foreign investigators and students and engender continued research initiatives. A cadre of dedicated bilingual US undergrad Interns are being recruited and trained in field methods while they work in collaborative quartets composed of a more experienced US student and two host- country counterparts. In addition to testing core hypotheses, these teams gather data crucial to understanding the effects of climate change on birds and their insect prey. Workshops at every active training site as well as round-tables, workshops and symposia at national and international meetings will be open to all interested biologists, regardless of taxonomic interest, thus expanding the intellectual scope of the project. Golondrinas sites will serve as an entry point for comparative biologists wishing to study other taxa throughout the Americas. All the project's activities and findings will be disseminated through the well-developed web and public outreach activities and infrastructure of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This project addresses fundamental ecological questions that, because of their scale, require testing via a broad network of international researchers. Through these interactions, it creates a sustainable and synergistic research collaboration among biologists from many nations and trains large numbers of US and foreign students for leadership in future collaborative scientific endeavors.This project is funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) with co-funding from the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB).