This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the Fellow that will utilize biological collections in innovative ways. Investigations of brain shape (i.e., neuroanatomical) evolution provide unprecedented insight to the evolutionary histories of living birds and shed light on behavioral traits, which do not fossilize in extinct taxa. One such behavior is powered flight, which has been a critical force driving the spectacular evolutionary success birds have experienced throughout their >150 million-year history. Nevertheless, flight has been lost in more than 25 distinct lineages of birds. If and how changes in brain shape reflect flying ability remains unknown, inhibiting our ability to predict locomotory behavior in extinct species. An ideal model group for filling this gap in knowledge are the rails, a group of small-medium sized, ground-dwelling birds known from around the world. The rails are marked by more than 20 independent losses of flight, including multiple times within the same species, many of which are recent occurrences. This research will investigate the variation in brain shape across living and recently extinct rails and estimate how quickly that variation arose. The Fellow will then identify which parts of the brain change as flight in rails is lost. Underrepresented (including First Generation) university students will engage in the aforementioned research to enhance their educational experience at the host institution.
The Fellow will scan the skulls of all rail species using high resolution X-ray computed tomography (CT). These data will be used to digitally reconstruct the external surface of the brain. The Fellow will then quantify and localize differences in brain shape both within and across rail species and estimate rates of brain shape evolution. Finally, the Fellow will compare these rates to previously estimated rates of evolution of other life history traits (e.g., flightlessness, speciation, extinction, and island endemism) to determine how closely changes in brain shape track flying ability. This project will provide research opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students, especially from underrepresented groups. The Fellow will partner with Ohio University?s (OU) Program to Aid Career Exploration to engage with First Generation university students. The Fellow will also work with OU?s Game Research and Immersive Design Lab to use 3D data resulting from this study to create meaningful educational experiences to foster the creativity and imagination of future generations of scientists.
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.
