Proposal number: 1612862
This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2016, Broadening Participation of Groups Under-represented in Biology in partnership with the Tribal Colleges and Universities program in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow to engage in research and training that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Dr. Chris A. Hamilton is "Broadening Participation of Native Americans into Collections-Based Research: Testing Hypotheses on the Hawkmoth-Bat Evolutionary Arms Race." The host institution for this fellowship is The University of Florida and The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH), and the sponsoring scientists are Dr. Akito Kawahara and Dr. Charles Cobb.
The Fellow's research focuses on the evolution of morphological diversity in hawkmoths, a species-rich group of insects. This research enhances our understanding of how evolutionary pattern and process produced Earth's diversity, a key question in biology. Hawkmoths are large, charismatic moths that are strong, fast fliers, with a diverse array of forewing shape variation and body size, yet few studies have investigated the drivers of this spectacular morphological diversity. Between 50-60 million years ago, major evolutionary lineages of echolocating bats emerged, along with a large radiations of the Macroheterocera, a group of moth species that includes the hawkmoths. The Fellow is testing the intriguing but unexplored hypothesis that differences in hawkmoth wing shape and body size are associated with the diversity of their primary nocturnal predators - bats. This idea challenges the conventional hypothesis that moth diversification was driven by plant evolution (because plants are their food source). Across the approximately 1,500 species of hawkmoths, anti-bat traits can be found which include ears keen to a bat's ultrasonic echolocation and ultrasound-producing organs that "jam" bat biosonar. The fast flight of hawkmoths, also thought to be an anti-bat trait, likely provides the ability to escape predators and cover large distances as adult hawkmoths seek out food for themselves or host plants for their larvae. These extended periods of flight would render hawkmoths vulnerable to predation by bats, putatively providing a strong selective force that led to evasive anti-bat traits, diverse body sizes, and wing shapes able to support acrobatic evasive flight; however, no one has tested this hypothesis in a phylogenetic context.
The proposed project promotes the participation of Native American students in biology by using exciting research questions and an interactive learning approach to characterize hawkmoth wing shape, investigate the historical evolutionary sequence of anti-bat traits, and test for correlations between these traits and extant diversity. The Fellow is engaging middle and high school students from The Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, by utilizing museum collections at the FLMNH to answer fundamental hypotheses regarding patterns of diversity - effectively linking two of NSF's missions: increasing minority participation and increasing the utility of biological collections. This collaborative research introduces the students to the usefulness of natural history collections (students gather morphometric data on hawkmoth wing shape and body size), demonstrates how researchers can use these resources to answer fundamental biological questions, and sparks students? interest in evolution. In addition, Chickasaw Nation students are being exposed to their own cultural history during summer trips to the FLMNH; during this time they work in the collections, assist in DNA extraction and preparation for sequencing of hawkmoth species, and importantly, discover the history of their Chickasaw ancestors through interactions with archeological artifacts.
