NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2014

Kane Emily A, Riverside CA

Investigators

Abstract

NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology combine research and training components to prepare young scientists for careers in biology and require a plan to broaden participation of groups under-represented in science and engineering. The fellowships advance NSF efforts to diversify the STEM workforce now and in the future. This fellowship to Emily A. Kane funds a research and training plan to address how interactions between swimming and feeding during prey capture in fishes affect the ability to survive in different environments, using guppies as the model organism. The host institution for this fellowship is Colorado State University, and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Cameron Ghalambor. Educational activities include building upon an effort to supplement local northern Colorado elementary and middle school classes at schools primarily serving under-represented students with hands-on natural-selection experiments using guppies. The fellowship facilitates training in research techniques and approaches, communication, mentoring, and teaching. Organisms survive by adapting as their environments change, but integration among traits means that changes in a trait can have consequences on organismal performance and survival across environments. Fishes are a model system for understanding interactions among performance traits, as there is likely a tradeoff between feeding and locomotor performance. Suction as a mechanism for capturing prey is only effective over limited distances, thus necessitating integration of locomotion with feeding to position the predator accurately relative to the prey. Functional tradeoffs between locomotion and feeding and the effects of performance integration on the ability to survive across environments with divergent selection regimes have not been directly tested. Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) are a model system for understanding adaptive evolution in natural populations. A combination of descriptive studies of escape and feeding performance in wild individuals and experimental studies of hybrid survival in laboratory selection experiments are being used to test the trade-off and survival hypotheses. The research is important for establishing the significance of performance integration in shaping ecological and evolutionary trajectories in organisms.