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。本斯顿（Sarah E. Bengston）的这项研究计划的标题是“岩蚁（Temnothorax属）社会寄生的进化史”。这个奖学金的主办机构是罗切斯特大学，赞助科学家是克里斯蒂安·拉贝林。冲突与合作是许多动物社会的基本特征。这两种力量之间的平衡有多种形式，通常反映在整个物种的生态中。社会寄生就是这样一个例子，当一个社会物种的成员利用另一个社会群体或物种的资源时，在寄生虫和被利用的宿主身上都产生了复杂的进化特征。在群居昆虫（如蚂蚁和蜜蜂）中，群居寄生可能发生在物种内部和物种之间，这意味着群体可能会利用同一物种的群体，其他物种或两者兼而有之。这项研究解决了寄生是如何产生的问题。由于寄生虫可以推动生物多样性，每年造成数百万美元的农业损失，导致新的疾病传播媒介，并影响保护工作，因此了解寄生虫如何产生和多样化对社会具有根本利益。该奖学金的研究部分调查了美国西部褐岩蚁（属：Temnothorax）物种中第一个有记录的社会寄生案例。来自加州科学院、史密森学会和哈佛比较动物学博物馆的生物标本是解决三个研究目标的分子和形态学数据来源：阐明Temnothorax宿主/寄生虫对的自然历史，以确定社会寄生在物种内部和物种之间的广泛程度；重建天胸蚁的进化史，了解群居寄生是如何产生的；并确定种群的子集是否已经成为生殖隔离，也就是说，由于与种群其他部分的有限基因流动而表现出行为变化和其他适应。培训目标包括学习和掌握新的分子遗传学和基因组技术，与精心策划的自然历史藏品合作，以及为未来的研究生涯提供职业发展活动，重点是进化遗传学、社会生物学、亲属关系和亲属冲突理论、物种形成和社会寄生的进化。更广泛的影响包括对本科生和研究生的教育推广，以及合作开发“盒子里的生物学”项目的课程，该项目为5个州33个学校系统的贫困学生提供服务，为K-12学校的STEM课程提供实践的、基于探究的补充材料。

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 Sarah E. Bengston is "The evolutionary history of social parasitism in rock ants (genus: Temnothorax)." The host institution for this fellowship is University of Rochester, and the sponsoring scientist is Christian Rabeling. Conflict and cooperation are foundational traits in many animal societies. The balance between these two forces takes many forms and often is reflected in the ecology of an entire species. Social parasitism is one such example and occurs when members of a social species exploit the resources of another social group or species, creating complex evolved traits in both the parasite and the exploited host. In social insects (such as ants and bees), social parasitism may occur both within and between species, meaning colonies may exploit colonies of the same species, other species or both. The research addresses the question of how parasitism arises. As parasitism can drive biodiversity, cost millions of dollars in agricultural damage annually, result in new vectors for disease transmission and affect conservation efforts, understanding how parasites arise and diversify is of fundamental interest to society. The research portion of the fellowship investigates the first recorded case of social parasitism in the western U.S. species of brown rock ant (genus: Temnothorax). Specimens from biological collections at the California Academy of Science, the Smithsonian Institution and the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology are the source of molecular and morphological data for addressing three research objectives: elucidate the natural history of Temnothorax host/parasite pairs to determine how widespread is social parasitism, both within and between the species; reconstruct the evolutionary history of Temnothorax ants to understand how social parasitism arose; and identify if subsets of the population has become reproductively isolated, that is, displaying behavioral shifts and other adaptations resulting from limited gene flow with the rest of the population. Training goals include learning and mastering new molecular genetic and genomic techniques, working with curated natural history collections, and career development activities for a future research career with a focus on evolutionary genetics, sociobiology, kinship and kin-conflict theory, speciation, and the evolution of social parasitism. Broader impacts include educational outreach to undergraduate and graduate students and collaborating to develop a curriculum for the Biology in a Box program, which serves under-privileged students in 33 school systems in 5 states, to provide hands-on, inquiry based supplemental material for STEM curricula in K-12 schools.