NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

Landis Michael, St. Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2016, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow to take transformative approaches to grand challenges in biology that employ biological collections in highly innovative ways. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Michael Landis is "Modeling ecological niche and geographical range co-evolution in the nightshade family (Solanaceae)." The host institution for this fellowship is Yale University, and the sponsoring scientist is Michael Donoghue. The goal of this research project is to develop a model of geographic range and ecological niche evolution, and apply the model to a family of ecologically diverse and geographically widespread plants, the nightshade family (Solanaceae). Adaptation to novel ecological conditions is common throughout the tree of life, and understanding how, when, and why ecological adaptation occurs has far-reaching applications in areas such as conservation biology, epidemiology, and agricultural science. Because species tend to conserve the ecological niche of their ancestors, and because species adapt to the local conditions found within or abutting their geographical ranges, analyzing this process requires a unified approach that incorporates ecological, geographical, and evolutionary perspectives. Advanced statistical models and inference approaches can be a powerful means of reconstructing evolutionary histories, especially in absence of hard evidence such as fossils. To this end, the Fellow is producing software to estimate how groups of closely related species evolve in response to ecological and geographical factors. Applying the method to environments everywhere from the Atacama Desert to the Tibetan Plateau, the Fellow is characterizing how plants in the Solanaceae family colonized Earth's most extreme environments. To inform the method, the Fellow is developing 'pipeline' tools to integrate molecular, geographical, and ecological data from online biological databases. These data will be supplemented with museum specimens from several major national botanical collections, including the Missouri Botanical Garden, the New York Botanic Garden, and the Harvard University Herbaria, and the Yale Peabody Museum. The Fellow is gaining valuable experience in conducting empirical research, a significant departure from his dissertation research, which was theoretical and consisted entirely of modeling. By working with the curators and collections of various museums, the Fellow is learning how to diagnose morphological characters using preserved and fossilized specimens. The Fellow is leading workshops in statistical phylogenetics, thereby allowing him improve his teaching skills and develop new collaborations. To advance his mentoring skills, the Fellow is training biology undergraduates through the Yale Science, Technology and Research Scholars (STARS) program, focusing on computational and statistical skills. Through community outreach programs, the Fellow is refining his ability to communicate scientific findings in plant evolution to high school students (Yale Science Diplomats) and amateur botanists (Green Café). Software produced during the fellowship is open-source and freely available to the research community.