NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2015

这一行动为2015财年NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，扩大了参与范围。该奖学金支持该研究员在东道主实验室的研究和培训计划，以及扩大科学界代表性不足群体的参与计划。玛格丽塔·M·L·乌里韦的这项研究计划的标题是“社会性对免疫系统的进化后果”。该奖学金的主办机构是北卡罗来纳州立大学，赞助科学家是罗伯特·R·邓恩、大卫·R·塔皮和史蒂文·D·弗兰克。社交生活对个人健康构成了挑战，因为在拥挤的环境中，疾病传播的风险更大。尽管有这样的挑战，社会性在进化上是成功的，不仅发生在人类身上，也发生在地球上最丰富和多样化的生物群体--社会性昆虫中。进化论预测，社会有机体的免疫系统应该受到社会性疾病传播风险的强烈影响。两个相互竞争的假说预测了群体生活在免疫系统上的进化后果。社会群体假说(SGH)认为，疾病在社会物种中传播的风险越高，社会物种中疾病群落的多样性就越多，个体免疫系统越强。相反，松弛选择假说(RSH)提出，社会物种进化了行为免疫防御，降低了群体内的疾病风险，导致病原体群落的多样性减少，个体水平的免疫力降低。这项联谊会研究使用了一种跨越多个独居和群居蜜蜂物种的比较系统发生学方法来测试这些假说，以考察考虑到群体生活的预期成本，有益于昆虫社会的进化机制。从蜜蜂身上获得的洞察力也可能适用于其他社会群体，在这些群体中，大量的种群密度可能正在塑造免疫系统和宿主-病原体动态，包括在人类中。培训目标侧重于增加生物信息学、免疫学分析和比较系统发育学方面的专业知识。职业发展活动和教育推广活动重叠在一起，在主办机构开发一门新课程，参加教学研讨会，并为小学和中学课堂制定教案。公众宣传包括通过两种方式向更广泛的受众传播有关本地蜜蜂动物群及其环境威胁的信息：1)举办本地蜜蜂传粉者研讨会；2)与“学生发现”计划合作，开设关于公共卫生和疾病传播的课堂课程。研讨会和教案都有英语和西班牙语，以涵盖西班牙裔社区。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2015, Broadening Participation. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow and a plan to broaden participation of groups under-represented in science. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Margarita M. López-Uribe is "The evolutionary consequences of sociality for immune systems." The host institution for this fellowship is North Carolina State University, and the sponsoring scientists are Robert R. Dunn, David R. Tarpy, and Steven D. Frank. Social living poses challenges for individual fitness because of a greater risk of disease transmission in crowded environments. Despite this challenge, sociality is evolutionarily successful, occurring not only in humans but also in the most abundant and diverse group of organisms on earth, the social insects. Evolutionary theory predicts that the immune systems of social organisms should be strongly shaped by the risk of social disease transmission. Two competing hypotheses predict the evolutionary consequences of group living on immune systems. The social group hypothesis (SGH) posits that the higher risk of disease transmission in social species will lead to the presence of more diverse disease communities and stronger individual immune systems in social species than in solitary ones. In contrast, the relaxed selection hypothesis (RSH) proposes that social species have evolved behavioral immune defenses that lower disease risk within the group, resulting in a less diverse pathogen community and reduced immunity at the individual level. The fellowship research tests these hypotheses using a comparative phylogenetic approach across multiple solitary and social bee species to investigate the evolutionary mechanisms that benefit insect societies in view of the expected costs of group living. Insights gained from bees may also be applicable to other social groupings where large population density may be shaping immune systems and host-pathogen dynamics, including in humans. Training goals focus on increasing expertise in bioinformatics, immunological assays, and comparative phylogenetics. Career advancement activities and educational outreach overlap by developing a new course at the host institution, enrolling in pedagogical workshops, and creating lesson plans for elementary and middle school classrooms. Public outreach includes disseminating information about native bee fauna and their environmental threats to wider audiences in two ways: 1) by conducting native bee pollinator workshops; and 2) by working with the "Students Discover" program to develop classroom lessons about public health and the spread of diseases. Workshops and lesson plans are both in English and Spanish, to be inclusive of Hispanic communities.