NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2019: Assessing linkages among roosting ecology, biomechanics, morphological change, and adaptive radiation in bats

Boerma, David, Providence RI

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. The fellow's research explores how animal anatomy (form), movement (function), and environment (ecology) change together over the course of evolution. Although each of these pieces is important individually, learning how they change in connection with one another sheds light on what sparks the rapid appearance of new species, periods called adaptive radiations. The fellow's research uses bats as a model system to explore how these changes are connected. Bats comprise 20% of all living mammals and live on every continent except Antarctica. Part of what allows bats to colonize such varied places is that they evolved diverse roosting habits. The fellow hypothesizes that bats' ability to develop new roosting habits (ecology) is linked to changes in the wing skeleton (form) and landing maneuvers (function), and that these factors worked together to drive the evolution of the many bat species observed today. This work integrates form, function, and ecology, and sets the stage for future work that reveals how the many facets of animal biology work together to drive diversification across the 'tree of life'. Alongside this scientific research, the fellow will adapt museum exhibits and research into science learning supplements for incarcerated students who are working toward their high school equivalency degree, and will serve as a mentor for undergraduate research experiences at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The fellow's research addresses three aims to assess links among roosting ecology, wing morphology, and landing mechanics. First, the fellow will use micro computed tomography (micro-CT) scans to compare patterns of wing inertia, which generates the forces that reorient bats' bodies during landing, across species. The second aim assesses interspecific differences in hindlimb skeletal geometry associated with the loading regimes imposed by landing impact forces. Finally, these data will be examined alongside landing maneuvers using phylogenetic comparative methods to determine whether there are clade-based links among ecological opportunity (roosting habits), landing biomechanics, morphology, and diversification rates. Through this research, the fellow will receive training in comparative morphology and phylogenetic methods through the use of museum collections at the AMNH. The fellow will work to broaden participation in science by developing STEM learning supplements for incarcerated students, mentoring undergraduate researchers, and by making research products publicly available 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.