NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

Womack Molly C, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

Postdoctoral Fellow: Molly C. Womack Proposal number: 1611752 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 Molly C. Womack is 'Selection and Constraints on Evolution of the Anuran Skeleton' The host institutions for this fellowship are the University of California-Berkeley and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, and the sponsoring scientists are Dr. Erica Bree Rosenblum (UC-Berkeley) and Dr. Rayna Bell (Smithsonian). The goal of this research is to identify selection pressures and evolutionary limitations acting on the skeleton diversity of frogs (anurans) over 160 million years of evolution. The Fellow is using X-ray microtomography (micro-CT) to examine the skeletons of 200 genera, spanning all 55 families of frogs. Using this dataset, the Fellow is analyzing the co-evolution of traits and providing a comprehensive study of anuran skeleton diversity. Despite the vast diversity of forms seen in nature, particular phenotypes evolve repeatedly across both closely related and deeply divergent species (convergent evolution). Frogs show rampant convergence and provide an exceptional system for researching the constraints and selection pressures that dictate evolutionary convergence as well as the limits of morphological evolution. The Fellow is using collections at the UC-Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History to generate a dataset to understand convergent evolution and evolutionary development. The 3D models of 200 anuran skeletons are being made freely available to other researchers and the public, allowing future studies to easily collect morphological data from museum specimens without destruction of any curated specimens. In addition to the proposed research, the Fellow is utilizing this extensive dataset to highlight species and clades of frogs that would provide ideal comparisons for future research investigating the evolution of skeletal traits. The Fellow is receiving training in micro-CT methods and comparative phylogenetic analyses. The Fellow is collaborating with both the Berkeley Natural History Museums Project and the Smithsonian's Q?rius program to create and implement lessons to communicate concepts such as adaptation and convergent evolution to broad audiences. These lessons use interactive 3D models of museum specimen skeletons that the Fellow is generating, and that are being made freely available for teachers and the general public through the Berkeley Natural History Museums Project and Q?rius websites. The Fellow is also mentoring multiple undergraduate researchers on the manipulation and quantification of 3D data as well as data for comparative phylogenetic analyses. These undergraduate researchers also have access to the broad dataset generated by the Fellow's research, for use in independent research projects.