NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2014

美国国家科学基金会生物学博士后奖学金将研究和培训相结合，为年轻科学家在生物学领域的职业生涯做好准备，并要求制定计划，扩大在科学和工程领域代表性不足的群体的参与。这些奖学金将推动美国国家科学基金会在现在和未来实现STEM劳动力多样化的努力。以色列德尔托罗研究金的研究和培训计划包括预测气候和国界对美国南部边境生物多样性保护和管理的影响。该奖学金的主办机构是哥本哈根大学宏观生态学、进化和气候中心和新墨西哥州立大学，赞助科学家是dr。内森·j·桑德斯和布兰登·贝斯特梅尔。该研究调查了两种节肢动物类群，蚂蚁和甲虫，分布在与墨西哥接壤的8个主要生态区域，这些区域的景观和生物多样性管理策略不同。本研究整合了气候变化生态学、生物地理学和政治生态学。预计结果将影响美国和墨西哥如何合作维持生物多样性。培训目标包括学习生态学和社会科学研究中使用的建模技术。来自代表性不足群体的本科生正在塞维利亚塔长期生态研究站进行独立的子项目。此外，在奖学金任期的最后一年，研究员将通过网站公开和免费提供这项研究的结果和数据。该奖学金由国际和综合活动办公室和生物科学理事会共同资助。该研究验证了这样一个假设，即沿社会政治边界两侧的碎片化和不同的管理和保护策略深刻地影响了跨边界范围内蚂蚁和甲虫物种的分布和丰度。在美国西南部和墨西哥北部的多个地点，沿着海拔梯度的实地采样方法被用于跟踪群落聚集和物种丰富度模式的变化。然后将这些数据用于物种分布模型和广义不相似性模型，以预测共享边界生态区未来的组成变化。

NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology combine research and training components to prepare young scientists for careers in biology and require a plan to broaden participation of groups under-represented in science and engineering. The fellowships advance NSF efforts to diversify the STEM workforce now and in the future. The research and training plan for this fellowship to Israel Del Toro involves forecasting impacts of climate and national boundaries on biodiversity conservation and management along the southern U.S. border. The host institutions for this fellowship are the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen and New Mexico State University, and the sponsoring scientists are Drs. Nathan J. Sanders and Brandon Bestelmeyer. The research investigates two arthropod taxa, ants and beetles, in the eight major ecoregions along the border with Mexico where landscape and biodiversity management strategies differ. This research integrates climate change ecology, biogeography and political ecology. Results are expected to impact how the U.S and Mexico can collaborate to maintain biodiversity. Training objectives include learning modeling techniques used in ecology and social science research. Undergraduate students from under-represented groups are conducting independent subprojects at the Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research Station. Additionally, the Fellow is making results and data from this research publically and freely available via a website during the final year of the fellowship tenure. This fellowship is funded by both the Office of International and Integrative Activities and the Directorate for Biological Sciences. The research tests the hypothesis that fragmentation and different management and conservation strategies along, and on either side of, the socio-political boundary profoundly impact the distribution and abundance of ant and beetle species with trans-boundary ranges. Field sampling methods along elevational gradients at multiple sites in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico are being used to track changes in community assembly and species richness patterns. These data are then used in species distribution models and generalized dissimilarity models to predict future compositional changes along the shared border ecoregions.