Project Title: "Offspring Sex Rations in Reptiles, Birds, AND Mammals: The Importance Of Environmental Predictability"
This project is awarded under the Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biological Informatics Program for 2006. The PI will use modeling and empirical approaches to examine whether biases in offspring sex ratios of amniote vertebrates (reptiles, birds, and mammals) are shaped by the predictability of their competitors. The models will reveal how unpredictability affects the relationship between sex ratio biases and offspring condition. Long-term, focal data from a species of turtle with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) and comparative, continental-scale data from non-marine reptiles with TSD will be analyzed to test the model predictions. The results of this project will provide a greater understanding of the occurrence and nature of offspring sex ratios in amniotes, including the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of TSD. The project will also predict responses of population sex ratios to climate change, and indicate when populations will go extinct if the evolutionary response is insufficiently rapid. The PI will be working in the lab of Frederic Janzen at Iowa State University where she will develop new skills in 1) analytical and simulation modeling, 2) computer programming, 3) statistical methods to analyze long-term data sets and to synthesize heterogenous, publicly-available data, and 4) mentoring of students at all levels. During the course of the proposed research she will become competitive for a faculty position at a research university by 1) conducting imaginative and synthetic research that incorporates powerful informatics approaches, 2) developing a broad biological perspective and a large scientific "tool-kit", 3) fostering national and international collaborations, and 4) gaining experience mentoring students and disseminating biology to the public.
