RoL:FELS: Symposium: Evolutionary Biomechanics in the Era of Big Data, January 6, 2019, Tampa, Florida

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This award funds a one-day conference at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, to advance research and develop new collaborations in the interdisciplinary field of evolutionary biomechanics. Imagine going for a stroll in a nearby park. Near the ground, a fungus slowly collects water so it can ballistically launch its spores into the air. Nearby, falling maple seed pods create air vortices, allowing them to remain aloft during dispersal. Up above, swifts and hawks scan the ground for food, their wings differently shaped for either maneuvering or speed. What do the fungus, maple tree, and birds have in common? Their motion - all biological motion, in fact - is subject to the laws of physics. Evolutionary biomechanics is the study of how the physical rules of motion shape the evolution of biodiversity, a field that is undergoing a renaissance due to major advances in imaging technology, machine learning approaches, and molecular phylogenetics. Novel discoveries in evolutionary biomechanics have important applications, including those in engineering and biologically-inspired robotic design. The supported one-day symposium highlights emerging trends in the field of evolutionary biomechanics. Undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers at the conference will obtain advice for pursuing diverse career opportunities, The major goal of the symposium is to galvanize new research and foster new collaborations in biomechanics. All biological motion is guided by the laws of physics. The major features of evolutionary fitness - locomotion, feeding, and reproduction - are guided by mechanical laws. Thus, the physics of movement and the evolution of biodiversity are deeply connected. One of the major unanswered questions in biology is how causal and predictive the relationships are between mechanics and phenotypic diversity. This award will support a one-day symposium at the 2019 meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology to highlight novel trends and discoveries in evolutionary biomechanics. Emerging leaders (of various backgrounds and ranks) in the field will discuss how they are using cutting-edge methods to improve our understanding of phenotypic evolution. New imaging methods allow the rapid generation, storage, and analysis of scans and videos. Machine learning techniques and crowd-sourcing platforms are accelerating the pace of data collection and pattern detection. Evolutionary analysis is being facilitated by Next Generation Sequencing and advances in comparative phylogenetics. Combined, these developments are rapidly elucidating the governing principles that causally, and predictably, link physics to phenotypic diversity. Students will be paired with symposium speakers in small groups, with the explicit goal of helping students plan their next career steps and forge new research collaborations. This award may help build an emerging interdisciplinary research network and encourage a new generation of scientists in evolutionary biomechanics. 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.