NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2017: The effect of intraspecific variation on interactions among species

这是美国国家科学基金会生物学博士后研究奖学金，隶属于“扩大生物学中代表性不足群体的参与”项目。这位名叫阿卡纳·诺托（Akana Noto）的研究员正在进行研究并接受培训，以增加在生物学中代表性不足的群体的参与。他的导师是美国东北大学的Randall Hughes和Tarik Gouhier。本研究旨在探讨生物多样性对生态群落的重要性，以新英格兰盐沼为研究对象。科学家经常研究物种多样性（有多少物种存在），但越来越多的研究表明，单个物种的遗传和性状多样性同样重要。个体间变异较多的物种受环境变化的影响较小，并且从变化中恢复得更快。然而，物种内部变异对其与其他物种相互作用的影响尚不清楚。这名研究员的研究探讨了物种多样性如何影响盐沼植物之间的竞争，以及以它们为食的草食性螃蟹的消费。盐沼具有许多重要的“生态系统功能”，包括过滤水和保护海岸线免受风暴侵袭，这项研究将产生预测，为管理和恢复这一重要的受威胁生态系统提供最佳方法。该研究员正在为当地的中小学生，特别是那些来自低收入和代表性不足的少数民族社区的学生制定教育活动和课程计划，重点关注物种内部变异的重要性。这些活动以当地生态系统为基础，帮助大部分来自城市地区的学生了解当地环境以及重要的生物概念。该研究员将结合实地实验（1,2）和模型(3)来提出以下具体问题，即种内变异如何通过物种相互作用影响植物群落：(1)植物物种内的种内遗传多样性如何影响种间竞争？(2)消费者种内性状多样性如何影响植物，这种影响是否通过植物遗传多样性介导？(3)植物生物量如何随植物和消费者种内多样性的空间变化而变化？盐沼是一个很好的模型系统，因为种内多样性是已知的重要和易于操作。这些问题为教授学生遗传多样性和进化等关键概念提供了良好的基础，这项研究将使研究员能够接受分子技术和数学和计算模型发展方面的培训。

This is an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology, under the program Broadening Participation of Groups Under-represented in Biology. The fellow, Akana Noto, is conducting research and receiving training that is increasing the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. The fellow is being mentored by Randall Hughes and Tarik Gouhier at Northeastern University. This research aims to investigate the importance of biodiversity on ecological communities, focusing on New England salt marshes. Scientists frequently study species diversity (how many species are present), but research increasingly shows that genetic and trait diversity within a single species can be similarly important. Species containing more variation among individuals are less affected by environmental change, and recover from change more quickly. However, the effect of variation within a species on its interactions with other species remains unclear. The fellow's research explores how diversity within species affects competition among salt marsh plants and consumption by the herbivorous crabs that eat them. Salt marshes serve many important 'ecosystem functions' including filtering water and protecting shorelines from storms, and this research will generate predictions to inform the best ways to manage and restore this important threatened ecosystem. The fellow is developing educational activities and lesson plans for local elementary and middle school students, particularly those from low-income and underrepresented minority communities, focusing on the importance of variation within species. These activities are based in local ecosystems and help students from largely urban areas learn about their local environment as well as important biological concepts. The fellow will use a combination of field experiments (1,2) and models (3) to ask the following specific questions about how intraspecific variation affects plant communities via species interactions: (1) How does intraspecific genetic diversity within a plant species affect interspecific competition? (2) How does intraspecific trait diversity among consumers affect plants, and is this effect mediated by plant genetic diversity? (3) How will plant biomass vary with plant and consumer intraspecific diversity across space? Salt marshes are a good model system because intraspecific diversity is known to be important and easy to manipulate. These questions provide a good basis for teaching students key concepts such as genetic diversity and evolution, and this research will allow the fellow to receive training in molecular techniques and development of mathematical and computational models.