NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2017: Hydric adaptation in anoles: tracking scale morphology and allele frequencies in response to climate and landscape change

这一行动为2017财年NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金-使用生物收藏进行研究-提供资金。该奖学金支持将以创新方式利用生物收藏的研究员的研究和培训。这个项目的重点是一种波多黎各蜥蜴，Anolis cristatellus，如何适应过去120年的气候和土地利用变化。这位研究员将使用自1890年以来收集的标本来研究这种蜥蜴物种的鳞片大小和基因频率如何随着时间的推移而变化。鳞片大小对热带蜥蜴来说是一个潜在的重要特征，因为大型鳞片被认为可以减少由于蒸发(即蒸发水分损失，简称EWL)而通过皮肤损失的水分。因此，据预测，生活在干燥栖息地的蜥蜴比生活在潮湿栖息地的蜥蜴有更大的鳞片。这位研究员将测量当代和历史博物馆标本的鳞片大小变化，看看过去120年来鸡冠花鳞片大小的变化是否跟踪了波多黎各气候和土地利用变化造成的干燥条件。这位研究员还将使用基因组方法来识别鸡冠草基因组中处于自然选择之下的区域。这项研究将提高我们对外温动物如何响应气候和土地利用历史变化的理解，并将有助于更准确地预测它们对未来变化的响应。这项研究将在生态生理学、适应基因组学和气候变化生物学领域之间建立联系，同时利用基于收藏的研究的力量。这位研究员将在当代和历史样本中测试鳞片形态和气候之间的关系，以及适应等位基因频率和气候之间的关系。为了确定哪些基因处于气候调节的选择之下，这位研究员将使用生态关联分析和气候层来分析外显子捕获数据。对于气候介导性选择下的基因，该研究员将使用单碱基延伸协议来分析历史样本中的适应性等位基因。这位研究员将与脊椎动物博物馆和加州大学伯克利分校的大学前向上绑定暑期计划合作，为来自弱势背景的高中生带来以博物馆为基础的教育和指导。这些研究的结果还将发表在同行评议的期刊上，并通过在科学会议上的陈述分享。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2017, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will utilize biological collections in innovative ways. This project focuses on how a species of Puerto Rican lizard, Anolis cristatellus, has adapted to climate and land-use changes over the last 120 years. The fellow will use specimens collected since 1890 to study how scale-size and gene-frequencies in this lizard species have changed through time. Scale-size is a potentially important trait for tropical lizards, because large scales are thought to reduce the amount of water that is lost through the skin due to evaporation (i.e. evaporative water loss, or EWL). Therefore, lizards in drier habitats are predicted to have larger scales than lizards in wetter habitats. The fellow will measure scale-size variation from contemporary and historical museum specimens to see if A. cristatellus scale-size variation over the last 120 years tracks drying conditions due to climate and land-use changes in Puerto Rico. The fellow will also use genomic approaches to identify regions of the A. cristatellus genome that are under natural selection. This research will improve our understanding of how ectotherms respond to historical changes in climate and land-use, and will facilitate more accurate predictions of their responses to future changes. The research will build links between the fields of eco-physiology, genomics of adaptation, and climate change biology while harnessing the power of collections-based research. The fellow will test for relationships between scale morphology and climate, and adaptive allele frequencies and climate, in both contemporary and historical samples. To determine genes that are under climate-mediated selection, the fellow will use ecological association analysis and climate layers to analyze exome-capture data. For genes that are under climate-mediated selection, the fellow will use a single-base extension protocol to assay adaptive alleles in historical specimens. The fellow will form a collaboration between the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and UC Berkeley's Pre-College Upward Bound Summer Program to bring museum-based education and mentorship to high-school students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Results from these studies will also be published in peer-reviewed journals and shared through presentations at scientific meetings.