This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for FY 2006. The fellowship supports research and training at the postdoctoral level at the intersection of biology and the informational, computational, mathematical, and statistical sciences. The goal of the fellowship is to provide training to a young scientist in preparation for a career in biological informatics in which research and education will be integrated. There is an increasing need for training in biological informatics at all occupational levels, and it is expected that Fellows trained through these fellowships will play important roles in training the future workforce. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled "The evolutionary genetics of social traits in social insects." Social insects are model systems for social evolution, but their full social complexity has not been incorporated into genetic models. This project uses a honeybee system, integrating extensive genetic and behavior data and developing new evolutionary genetic models, to study the evolutionary importance of the genetic architecture underlying social traits.
The training goals are to learn new approaches to: study the molecular genetic basis of traits, develop analytic and simulation evolutionary genetic models, and integrate genomic and gene expression data available for model genetic systems such as the honeybee. This training will help the Fellow achieve his career goals of using social insects to study social evolution.
