NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Testing rules of life for developmental trade-offs in sensory and cognitive systems

这一行动为NSF 2021财年生物学博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，综合研究调查了支配基因组、环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则。该奖学金支持研究员的研究和培训，这些研究员将以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。发育包括身体的生长和分化成专门的组织。作为对早期生命压力的回应，从植物到昆虫再到哺乳动物，有机体面临着发展速度和专业化之间的权衡。以更快的速度成熟可能有助于有机体逃避环境压力，但也会与其他对生存至关重要的特征进行权衡，如身体大小、肢体形成和免疫系统功能。这项研究探索了加速生长如何影响神经和认知发展，这对动物准确地对环境中的有益线索和威胁做出反应至关重要。由于脊椎动物的发育途径和大脑决策区域是共享的，这位研究员的研究将是识别在生长和分化之间权衡的机制方面向前迈出的重要一步。该研究员将开发新的基于网络的活动，向不同的受众分发材料，并与美国原住民学生合作，纳入以青蛙为中心的叙事，为教案提供文化和历史相关性。这位研究员将在犹他州立大学(USU)和伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的两个研究实验室建立网络，以检查无尾两栖动物的感觉和认知表型在加速发育时是稳定的还是灵活的。这位研究员将操纵三种远亲无尾两栖动物的发育时间，以评估在形态、运动、感觉和认知方面的权衡，然后将权衡与潜在的神经分子机制和基因表达模式联系起来。这项研究将揭示发育可塑性如何在生物组织的各个层面上表现出来，这些模式如何在不同的类群中进化或保持，以及这些现象如何影响物种和群落对生态系统变化的适应能力。该项目的另一个组成部分是通过Froggers School Program向犹他州北部的K-12学校扩展，该计划将动手的、基于问题的学习体验带到当地课堂。该研究员还将通过指导学生参与本科生主导的研究和与学生职业目标相匹配的扩展项目，与USU专门研究、完成和纳入学生的现有项目合作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2021, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the Fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. Development involves growth of the body and differentiation into specialized tissues. In response to early-life stress, organisms - from plants to insects to mammals - face trade-offs between developmental speed and specialization. Maturing at a faster rate may help organisms escape environmental stress but creates trade-offs with other traits that are important for survival such as body size, limb formation, and immune-system function. This research explores how accelerated growth impacts neural and cognitive development, which is critical for animals to accurately respond to beneficial cues and threats in their environments. Since developmental pathways and decision-making brain regions are shared across vertebrates, the Fellow’s research will be a major step forward for identifying mechanisms that mediate trade-offs between growth and differentiation. The Fellow will develop new, web-based activities to distribute material to a diverse audience and work with Native American students to incorporate frog-centric narratives that lend cultural and historical relevance to lesson plans. The Fellow will build networks across two research labs at Utah State University (USU) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to examine if sensory and cognitive phenotypes in anurans are stable or flexible in response to accelerated development. The Fellow will manipulate developmental timing in three distantly-related species of anurans to assess trade-offs in morphology, locomotion, sensory perception, and cognition, and then link trade-offs to underlying neuromolecular mechanisms and gene-expression patterns. This research will reveal how developmental plasticity manifests across levels of biological organization, how these patterns evolve or are maintained across diverse taxa, and how these phenomena influence the resiliency of species and communities to ecosystem changes. An additional component of the project is expansion to northern Utah K-12 schools by the Froggers School Program which brings hands-on, question-based learning experiences to local classrooms. The Fellow will also partner with established programs that specialize in student retention, completion, and inclusion at USU by mentoring students in undergraduate-led research and outreach projects that match students’ career goals.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.