NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

Heberling Jacob M, New Kensington PA

Investigators

Abstract

Postdoctoral Fellow: Jacob Mason Heberling Proposal Number 1612079 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 J. Mason Heberling is "Leveraging centuries of herbarium data to track plant invasion processes: trait shifts, local adaptation, and rapid evolution." The host institutions for this fellowship are the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and the sponsoring scientists are Drs. Stephen Tonsor and Susan Kalisz. The goal of this research is to understand fundamental plant invasion processes, including the frequency and importance of trait shifts following plant introductions, the direction and rate of these potential trait changes, and the degree to which local adaptation influences invasion success. Globalization of human activities has reshuffled plant communities across the world, resulting in substantial environmental damage and economic losses. In this research, the Fellow is leveraging centuries of biological collections alongside recent advances in functional trait ecology to understand fundamental plant invasion processes. Specifically, the Fellow is utilizing the extensive collection of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History herbarium, supplemented with specimens from other herbaria worldwide. The Fellow is using these specimens of introduced and native Eastern US species, collected from early 1800s to today, to measure traits relating to carbon gain, resource-use, reproductive/dispersal ability, and phenology across space and time. The main research objectives include using these data to track phenotypic change through the course of plant invasion and assess the role of local adaption to understand and predict species success. The Fellow's project fosters the use of herbaria in the rising field of trait-based ecology, and will substantially expand existing global trait databases to facilitate research on fundamental biological questions at a large scale. The Fellow is receiving training in skills associated with herbarium methods, recent statistical advancements, geographic information systems (GIS), and software development for efficient specimen georeferencing. Career development activities include building research collaborations, developing a broad research portfolio to include herbarium data and evolutionary analyses, and encouraging diverse participation to highlight the importance of biological collections as a vital source of knowledge to the broader community. The Fellow is promoting the use of collections-based research through interaction with community organizations in Western PA, including local elementary education programs and museum docent training.