NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Investigating the behavioral and genetic mechanisms underlying invasiveness

Burkhard, Tracy T, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2021, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the Fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. The research will examine how behavioral and genetic characteristics of populations affect the ability to adapt to environmental change. Invasive species are a prime model for this investigation because invasions require populations to tolerate and rapidly adapt to local conditions. The Fellow will use the house mouse (Mus musculus) as a model species. House mice are a highly successful invasive species and have established populations across six continents, demonstrating their great capacity for adaptation to diverse environmental conditions and stressors. Mus subspecies differ in behavior, genetics, and degree of invasiveness, facilitating investigation of how variation in behavior and genetics contributes to the ability to adapt. To increase public engagement and broaden participation in STEM, the Fellow will collaborate with elementary schools and develop scientific storytelling. The Fellow will focus on behavioral and genetic variation in the proactive-reactive behavioral syndrome. The proactive-reactive syndrome comprises the correlated behavioral axes of boldness, activity, aggression, and exploration (BAAE). The genetic structure of these behavioral correlations can affect a population’s capacity for adaptation: if genetic correlations underlie behavioral correlations, populations may be constrained in their ability to evolve novel behavioral combinations. Invasive populations are predicted to have higher levels of BAAE than less invasive or non-invasive populations, and they are predicted to be relatively unconstrained by genetic architecture; however, these hypotheses have seldom been tested with invasive models. The Fellow will first ask whether behavioral differences in BAAE in two subspecies of house mice predict their differences in invasiveness. The Fellow will then perform low-coverage whole-genome sequencing on wild, hybrid mice and use association mapping to identify the loci underlying behavioral traits and determine the genetic mechanisms linking behavioral correlations. Finally, the Fellow will study the genetic (co)variance of behavioral correlations and ask how this genetic structure impacts the ability for populations to evolve novel trait combinations. Results from this study will help address outstanding challenges in behavioral ecology and evolution while also providing insight into understanding broad-scale ecological phenomena. In addition to research skills, the Fellow will gain a strong collaborative experience with the MEME Msc program which serves a wide body of international students. 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.