NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

Billerman Shawn M, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

Postdoctoral Fellow: Shawn M. Billerman Proposal number 1612277 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 Shawn M. Billerman is "Specimen-based comparisons of hybridization: the effect of genetic and environmental forces on hybrid zones in a suture zone." The host institution for this fellowship is Cornell University and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Irby Lovette. The goal of this research is to explore how genetic and environmental mechanisms influence speciation in suture zones. Hybrid zones are places where the ranges of two previously isolated populations of two different species overlap, where the two species interbreed. These areas of active hybridization are often regarded as natural laboratories in which to study speciation. While studies of single hybrid zones have improved our understanding of evolutionary processes, we can better test for the general factors that contribute to the creation of biodiversity by investigating and comparing multiple hybrid zones. Suture zones, where multiple hybrid zones cluster in geographic space, represent particularly powerful opportunities to identify the shared environmental and genetic mechanisms that contribute to speciation. The Fellow is comparing patterns of hybridization across five different pairs of bird species that meet and hybridize in the Great Plains of North America. Using historical bird specimens in the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, the Fellow is investigating how different conditions affect speciation through time. This comparative approach combines studying movement of genes across hybrid zones, how plumage traits are distributed across the landscape relative to the genetic background of each species pair, and how past changes in climate have affected changes in the distributions of each hybrid zone over time. The Fellow is leveraging a unique series of hybrid zone specimens collected in the 1950s and 60s that allow for comparison and identification of the mechanisms regulating suture zone dynamics at an unprecedented scale and level of detail. The Fellow is receiving training in the extraction of genetic material from museum specimens, and learning new analytical skills for using extremely large, genome-wide datasets. In particular, the Fellow is learning how to assemble whole-genome sequence data and develop tools to identify genomic regions of particular importance for speciation and biodiversity. He is also developing outreach material for the public by leveraging the resources of project eBird, an NSF funded citizen science program run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, to educate the public about how studying hybridization can help reveal the impact of climate change on biodiversity. The Fellow is also developing educational modules for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that emphasize the value of studying hybrid zones and hybridization. Finally, the Fellow is mentoring undergraduate researchers.