This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, 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. The Fellow will investigate developmental changes in the chemical composition of plant foliage and how these changes impact communities of plant-feeding insects over time. The project will use common milkweed, an iconic model plant known for its intimate association with monarch butterflies, as a study organism. Because climate change will affect the timing of interactions between species, it is vitally important to understand how organisms change over time and how that affects their interactions with other organisms. While performing this research, the Fellow will be mentored in cutting-edge research methods and contribute to local educational outreach and the professional development of undergraduate researchers.
This research will emphasize the interactive effects of plant ontogeny (i.e. development through life stages), climate variability, and genetic variation in structuring biological diversity across scales from molecules to communities. The Fellow will first explore the molecular mechanisms underlying variation in the timing of milkweed development through ontogenetic stages, and in ontogenetic changes in foliar chemistry, by linking phenotypic data with gene expression data. Next, the Fellow will investigate how climate variability interacts with plant ontogeny and genetic variation to drive phenotypic diversity within and among individual plants. This second objective will involve experimental manipulation of spring temperature variability and tracking of resultant changes in plant ontogeny and trait composition at population, organismal, and sub-organismal scales. Finally, the Fellow will determine the relationship between among-plant diversity in ontogenetic stage and community-scale arthropod diversity and trophic interactions, using experimental plant populations with different levels of ontogenetic diversity. The Fellow will receive mentorship from Dr. Will Wetzel and others at Michigan State University, including training in new molecular and statistical methods, and will also participate in mentorship of more junior colleagues. The Fellow will use concepts from this project to develop a professional development module for elementary teachers, with the aim of improving teachers? ability to incorporate outdoor education and classroom-based research projects into their science curricula.
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.
