NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2015

本行动资助美国国家科学基金会2015年度生物学博士后研究奖学金，利用生物馆藏进行研究。该奖学金支持一项研究和培训计划，使研究员能够以高度创新的方式采用生物收集的变革性方法来应对生物学方面的重大挑战。瑞安·福克的研究计划的标题是“深时间的生态位生物学：应用于萨克斯门动物祖先生态位重建的新方法”。该奖学金的主办机构是佛罗里达大学，赞助科学家是Robert P. Guralnick、Douglas E. Soltis和Pamela S. Soltis。生态位是一个物种在生态群落中的角色，包括它与其他物种及其物理环境的所有相互作用。生态位模型（ENM）使用计算机算法来模拟物种的生态需求，并已成为预测其地理分布（过去、现在和未来）不可或缺的工具。ENM非常适合使用世界各地产生的日益庞大和可访问的生物博物馆标本数据。这些数据和新的建模方法有望在生态学和进化生物学的界面上提供关键问题的答案，例如生物体在生态位中随时间变化的程度，以及它们对当前环境变化的潜在反应。该奖学金研究正在开发广泛适用的计算包，利用生物收集数据，然后使用这些工具进一步将ENM与进化历史结合起来。此外，这些计算工具可能会被其他人广泛使用，以实现从DNA水平到生物体结构的综合研究。作为一个试验案例，研究的重点是Saxifragales植物谱系，因为其生态需求的变化特别显著，从北部苔原到沙漠，水生和高山栖息地。这个谱系对于我们熟悉的农业和花园植物，如醋栗、醋栗、甜桉树、金缕梅、牡丹和珊瑚铃，以及入侵杂草，如水千叶草，都是很重要的。研究员的培训目标包括学习生物信息学和生态建模的方法，以及发展沙棘植物自然史方面的专业知识。信息学培训包括使用脚本语言来解析和处理现在越来越多的生物收集研究特征的大型数据集，从而为使用生物收集的研究生涯做好准备。教育拓展包括本科生物课程和高中教学。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2015, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow to take transformative approaches to grand challenges in biology that employ biological collections in highly innovative ways. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Ryan Folk is "Niche biology in deep time: new methods for ancestral niche reconstruction applied to the Saxifragales." The host institution for this fellowship is the University of Florida, and the sponsoring scientists are Robert P. Guralnick, Douglas E. Soltis, and Pamela S. Soltis. An ecological niche is the role of a species in an ecological community, encompassing all of its interactions with other species and its physical environment. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) uses computer algorithms to model the ecological requirements of species and has emerged as an indispensible tool to predict their geographic distributions -- past, present, and future. ENM is perfectly suited to use the increasingly large and accessible amount of biological museum specimen data being generated across the world. These data and new modeling methods promise to provide answers to critical questions at the interface of ecology and evolutionary biology, such as the degree to which organisms can shift in ecological niche over time, with implications for their potential responses to present-day environmental change. The fellowship research is developing broadly applicable computational packages that utilize biological collections data and then using these tools to further integrate ENM with evolutionary history. Further, these computational tools are likely to see broader use by others to enable integrative research from the level of DNA to the structure of organisms. As a test case, the research focuses on the plant lineage Saxifragales, chosen for its particularly remarkable variation in ecological requirements, from northern tundra to desert, aquatic, and alpine habitats. This lineage is significant for containing familiar agricultural and garden plants such as currants, gooseberries, sweetgum, witch hazel, peonies, and coral bells as well as invasive weeds such as watermilfoil. Training goals for the Fellow include learning methods in biological informatics and ecological modeling and developing expertise in the natural history of saxifrages. The informatics training includes the use of scripting languages to parse and handle the large datasets now increasingly characteristic of biological collections research, thus preparing the Fellow for a research career using biological collections. Educational outreach includes both undergraduate biology courses and high school teaching.