NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2019: Context-Dependent Life History Responses to Climate Change

Reider, Kelsey, Fort Lauderdale FL

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2019, Broadening Participation of Groups Under-represented in Biology. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. The proposed research will test the hypothesis that climate variation is driving changes in high-elevation ecosystems. The study combines insights from 29 years of existing data with new field observations and experiments to understand how extreme weather and environmental variables such as warming temperatures and reduced snowpack affect salamanders in a rapidly changing mountain environment. In addition to being broadly applicable to other amphibians, this research will inform conservation approaches for many other species in rapidly changing high-mountain ecosystems and other ecosystems experiencing climate variation. Amphibians are among the most threatened vertebrate animals on the planet, and high-mountain environments are undergoing dramatic ecological changes in response to climate variation. There is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms of species responses to climate variation to design effective conservation measures for particular environmental contexts. The fellow will involve undergraduate students from groups underrepresented in biology in the project and develop teaching tools that prepare students from diverse backgrounds to pursue and fund graduate research. First, the fellow will explore the effects of past climatic variation on phenology (e.g., timing of reproduction and hibernation) and life history (e.g., body condition, survival, fecundity, longevity, etc.) using long-term demographic data. Sophisticated statistical models will be used to evaluate relationships and links between population dynamics in salamanders that have polyphenic adult morphs (aquatic and terrestrial) that live in the same location but are subject to climate variation under different environmental contexts. Second, this research will compare temperature and water stress impacts of climate trends, which are crucial physiological considerations for amphibians, under different environmental contexts (using data-logger-implanted salamanders as mobile temperature sensors) and under conditions of accelerated snowmelt (by combining biophysical salamander models and experimental manipulation of snowmelt date). Results from this research will inform how asymmetric life history impacts of climate variation under different environmental contexts can promote or hinder population resilience to a changing climate and provide a case study of how other species might respond. The fellow will participate in career development activities such as advanced statistical training, proposal writing, and teaching. The fellow will develop and teach an undergraduate equity course, initiate a diversity journal club, and create a database of annotated examples of research by biological science practitioners from under-represented groups that will be used in undergraduate courses and disseminated online. 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.