NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology

这一行动为2008年度美国国家科学基金会生物学博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，资助Nathan G. Swenson博士，他的研究和培训计划题为“热带森林的系统发育多样性和更替：辨别生态、生物地理和进化过程的作用”。赞助的科学家是哈佛大学热带森林科学中心的斯图亚特·詹姆斯·戴维斯博士？这里是阿诺德植物园。群落生态学的一个日益增长的范式是，通过研究物种的进化史，可以对群落的生物多样性是如何产生和维持的有前所未有的见解。尽管基于系统发育的群落分析的数量正在增加，但目前缺乏对多物种丰富群落的系统发育多样性和周转的广泛、大规模的综合分析。此外，很少开发信息学工具来进行此类研究。拟议的研究通过开发新的系统发育分析工具和将系统发育假设与大型热带树木群落数据集相结合来填补这一空白。该研究项目也提供了一个学习新技能和发展一套新的分析技术的机会，以扩大奖学金获得者？使用新颖的综合分析工具进行一系列科学探究，以完善对如此多物种如何在群落中共存的理解。更广泛的科学影响将出现在生态学和进化生物学领域。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2008 to Dr. Nathan G. Swenson whose research and training plan is entitled Phylogenetic diversity and turnover in tropical forests: discerning the role of ecological, biogeographic and evolutionary processes. The sponsoring scientist is Dr. Stuart James Davies at the Center for Tropical Forest Science at Harvard?s Arnold Arboretum.A growing paradigm in community ecology is that through studying the evolutionary history of species unprecedented insights can be gained into how biodiversity in communities is generated and maintained. Although the number of phylogenetically-based analyses of communities is expanding, currently lacking is an extensive broad-scale integrative analysis of phylogenetic diversity and turnover across multiple species rich communities. Further, few informatics tools have been developed to carry out such research. The proposed research is filling this gap by developing novel phylogenetic analytical tools and by integrating phylogenetic hypotheses with a large tropical tree community data set.The research program also provides an opportunity to learn new skills and develop a novel set of analytical techniques that broaden the Fellow?s range of scientific enquiry using novel integrative analytical tools in order to refine an understanding of how so many species can co-exist in communities. The broader scientific impact will be in both ecology and evolutionary biology.