NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: Plant plasticity in response to climatic variability and drought stress

Branch, Haley A, Vancouver

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2023, Broadening Participation of Groups Underrepresented in Biology. The Fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. This research seeks to understand the biological mechanisms behind drought tolerance in plants and will advance knowledge about the ability of plant populations to adapt to drought. This is important because as the climate warms, drought becomes more common. The Fellow will examine plant responses by assessing changes in whole plants, both structures above the ground and in the roots, that can prevent dehydration. Little is currently known about these responses, which makes this vital research for understanding plant vulnerability to future climates. In addition to the scientific research, the Fellow will assess the accessibility of long-term ecological research stations in the United States to create a database of sites where accessible fieldwork can be performed. This will assist disabled researchers to determine where they can participate in fieldwork. The Fellow will also educate station leaders around disability issues and provide potential avenues for improvements. Populations with large geographical ranges generally occupy diverse environments, making them excellent candidates for studying adaptive differences to climatic variability. Mimulus guttatus, yellow monkeyflower, is a model organism for examining plant adaptation and this species will be used to assess genetic and phenotypic differences that confer drought tolerance or vulnerability across populations. Seeds of Mimulus guttatus from range-wide populations will be grown in a common greenhouse environment and exposed to wet or dry treatments. The timing of life history and photosynthetic performance of plants will be broadly characterized, and the exposure of different treatments will allow for the assessment of plasticity of these traits. A subset of plants will be grown in agar to assess root-level adaptation to drought stress, examining architecture and cellular structure. Root and leaf tissues will be collected throughout developmental stages and analyzed for differences in genetic expression using RNA-seq to help explain drought response modulation. Populations that are found in more stable mesic areas will likely be less drought-adapted than populations from drier or more variable climates. The Fellow will be trained in a collaborative environment from experts in plant physiology, evolutionary genetics, and phylogenomics. The Fellow will also advise undergraduate students on independent research related to this project. 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.