NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2010

Sexton Jason P, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Minority Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for FY 2010, co-funded with the NSF International Research Fellows Program. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Jason Sexton is "Gene flow and niche breadth in novel environments: Adaptation under predicted climate change in Australian alpine plants." The host institution for this research is University of Melbourne, and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Ary Hoffmann. Gene flow has long been hypothesized to affect niche breadth and adaptive processes within novel environments. Yet, the understanding of the effects of gene flow on adaptation in empirical systems is meager. Climate change is predicted to cause much extinction, particularly in alpine systems where high numbers of endemic species have little space to migrate uphill and must rely on in situ adaption. Field experiments are being conducted in alpine environments of southeastern Australia with plant species from several genera, including grasses, sedges, and forbs. The effects of experimental gene flow (controlled crosses) from different distances on genetic variation and adaptive responses are being assessed in current and experimentally warmed conditions, allowing a comparison of the effects of gene flow on niche breadth across multiple taxa and at multiple geographic scales. The training objects include quantifying natural selection in natural and experimental populations, conducting a large-scale, multi-species climate change study to answer important questions in evolutionary and conservation biology, and collaborating among scientists and management groups to achieve research goals and to disseminate research findings to natural resource managers and to the public. Developing an understanding of how gene flow, genetic diversity, and climate adaptation interact within alpine systems may contribute to strategies aimed more broadly at geographically restricted biological systems, which, to persist, must respond to environmental shifts as a result of human-induced climate change.