NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2018

Dowdy Nicolas J, Chandler AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2018, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will utilize biological collections in innovative ways. The Fellow's research focuses on the evolutionary innovations that have allowed tiger moths to ward off their would-be bat predators. Tiger moths protect themselves from bat predators with toxic chemicals obtained from plants and with their unique ability to produce ultrasonic clicks which advertise their distastefulness and/or disrupt bat echolocation. There is a large degree of variation in the chemical profiles and in the sounds produced by tiger moths. It is unknown what drives these differences, given that both of these are defenses against bat predation. The Fellow will address this knowledge gap by utilizing museum collections to estimate sound-production, chemical profiles, and genetic relatedness among a large number of tiger moth species. The Fellow will also utilize geographic information associated with each specimen to determine if any aspects of their environment can explain these differences. As part of this work, the Fellow will work with staff at a major museum to develop an exhibit which will communicate this research to the public, immersing them in the bat-moth co-evolutionary arms race. To address the goals of this project, the Fellow will apply a newly-developed molecular probe set to generate a densely-sampled phylogeny based on >650 genes to resolve evolutionary relationships within the tiger moths. Sound-production will be inferred with a previously-developed predictive statistical model relating morphometric measurements to important acoustic characteristics. Chemical profiles of insect tissues will be generated by utilizing analytic chemistry techniques to identify compounds based on their fragmentation spectra and estimate their concentrations. These traits will be examined in a phylogenetic framework to examine 1) whether sonar-jamming has evolved more than once, 2) the ancestral state(s) of sonar-jamming, and 3) whether gaining the sonar-jamming defense is correlated with losing defensive chemistry. Geographic information from specimen labels will be used to understand whether environmental and/or biotic factors have influenced the evolution of these anti-predator traits. The Fellow will be trained in molecular methods, comparative evolutionary analyses, geometric morphometrics, analytical chemistry techniques, and spatial analyses of overlapping species distributions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.