NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2019: The evolution of mate-choice traits and genomic architecture of speciation in swallows \(genus Hirundo\)

Schield Drew R, Arlington TX

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2019, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will utilize biological collections in innovative ways. Characterizing biodiversity (the diversity of life on the planet) is a central goal of evolutionary biology. This research aims to understand how changes in an organism's genome create new species. The Fellow will use data from natural history collections combined with genome data to understand how swallows may have formed new species. To increase broader participation in science, the Fellow will also mentor students from underrepresented groups at the host-lab institution, and organize outreach and entertainment events with local businesses to promote engagement between scientists and the broader community. The accumulation of genomic resources has allowed for recent advances in our understanding of the genomic basis of reproductive isolation and has led to the hypothesis that non-random associations between loci that confer barriers to gene flow may be powerful drivers of speciation. However, further empirical demonstration of this 'coupling' of barrier loci is required to confirm its importance in speciation. This research will address this need through integrative analysis of phenotypic data collected from natural history specimens and newly-generated genomic data from representatives across the swallow genus Hirundo. Because Hirundo includes lineages at various stages of the speciation continuum and considerable phenotypic variation in mate choice traits, it is an ideal system to test for empirical evidence that the coupling of barrier loci underlying selected traits drives speciation. Further, this research will thoroughly examine the genomic architecture of speciation by quantifying genetic diversity, the recombination landscape, and genomic composition and structure in regions underlying mate-choice traits. Ultimately, this study will integrate analyses of phenotypic data and comparative population genomics to test the importance of coupling between divergent traits in the process of speciation. 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.