Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology: Predicting Extinction Risk across Tree Pangolin Populations

这一行动为NSF 2022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。气候变化对全球生物多样性构成严重威胁。了解哪些物种面临最大的灭绝风险，有助于指导有限的保护资源的分配。估计一个物种因气候变化而灭绝的风险需要了解它们暴露在不断变化的气候中，以及它们适应新条件的能力。然而，目前对气候变化脆弱性的评估通常只考虑暴露的风险，通常是因为确定一个物种适应新气候的能力是具有挑战性的。这项研究将开发一个框架，用于研究物种如何适应当地的气候条件，并量化这些适应与未来气候条件之间的不匹配。这个框架将被用来估计气候变化带来的物种灭绝风险。该研究员将以濒临灭绝的穿山甲(Phataginus Tricuspis)为例进行研究。树穿山甲广泛分布在西非和中非的几个不同的气候带，并显示出强大的种群遗传结构。来自它们整个范围的整个基因组数据将被用于识别与气候相关的适应性基因组变异。这些关联将被用来计算当前和未来气候之间的等位基因不匹配，从而估计基因组对未来气候变化的脆弱性。最后，这位研究员将直接比较传统的、仅暴露于环境的模型预测的未来栖息地的数量与这种适应信息模型预测的数量，以量化包括进化过程在内的预测如何改变。通过在种群水平上评估灭绝风险，这项工作将确定需要进行保护干预的高优先级种群。可行的保护建议将与在该地区工作的利益攸关方分享。这项工作将产生一个基因组学管道，用于评估其他本地适应种群因气候变化而灭绝的风险。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 2022, 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. Climate changes poses a grave threat to global biodiversity. Understanding which species are most at risk of extinction can help guide the allocation of limited conservation resources. Estimating a species’ extinction risk from climate change requires an understanding of their exposure to changing climate and of their ability to adapt to new conditions. However, current assessments of vulnerability to climate change usually only consider the risk from exposure, often because determining a species’ ability to adapt to novel climate is challenging. This research will develop a framework for studying how species adapt to local climate conditions and for quantifying the mismatch between those adaptations and future climate conditions. This framework will be used to estimate species’ extinction risk from climate change.The fellow will use the endangered tree pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) as a case study. The tree pangolin is broadly distributed across several different climatic zones across Western and Central Africa and shows strong population genetic structure. Whole genomic data from across their range will be used to identify adaptive genomic variation associated with climate. These associations will be used to calculate the allelic mismatch between current and future climate, thus estimating genomic vulnerability to future climate change. Finally, the fellow will directly compare the amount of future habitat predicted by traditional, exposure-only models with that predicted by this adaptation-informed model to quantify how including evolutionary process changes predictions. By assessing extinction risk at the population level, this work will identify high-priority populations for conservation interventions. Actionable conservation recommendations will be shared with stakeholders working in the region. This work will produce a genomics pipeline for assessing extinction risk from climate change in other locally adapted populations.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.