Dimensions US-BIOTA-Sao Paulo: Collaborative Proposal: Traits as predictors of adaptive diversification along the Brazilian Dry Diagonal

维度 US-BIOTA-圣保罗：合作提案：特征作为巴西干对角线沿线适应性多样化的预测因子

• 批准号: 1831182
• 负责人: Xianfa Xie
• 金额: $ 36.62万
• 依托单位: Virginia State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1831182&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dimensions; US; BIOTA; Sao; Paulo

The Brazilian Dry Diagonal (BDD) is a broad region of diverse and unique habitats sandwiched in between the wetter Amazon basin to the west and the moist tropical and subtropical Atlantic Forest to the east. Although the BDD can appear superficially to be wasteland with little variety, in fact it harbors many unique species, comprise the most endangered set of habitats in Brazil, and is being rapidly being lost to agriculture and other human encroachment. This research will be the first to synthesize information from species' traits, communities, and genetics to understand how the unique traits and communities of organisms living in the BDD evolved. Using a diverse set of approaches to study in detail a variety of animals, plants and fungi that today inhabit this broad swath of dry habitats in central Brazil, the researchers will evaluate: 1) what sorts of traits - such as body size, shape or specific behaviors - allow a group of organisms to succeed in a novel environment? 2) how the novel environment determines the set of organisms - the community - that we see today? 3) how organisms adapt genetically and morphologically to that novel environment? and 4) how novel traits, communities, and genetic changes interact to produce the variety of organisms that are seen in different environments today? Answers to these questions will improve scientists' ability to predict the impacts of a changing world on biodiversity. The project will foster new international research collaborations by engaging a large team of experts from the United States and Brazil and will also provide interdisciplinary research training opportunities for undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. To accomplish the four aims listed above, the project will first use a machine learning approach applied to hundreds of traits and lineages in the BDD to determine which traits predict evolutionary success - the tendency for xeric-adapted species to undergo evolutionary diversification. The project will then employ community phylogenetics approaches to understand how functional trait variation is distributed in the BDD, and will determine the evolutionary patterns and over- or under-dispersion of trait values observed in particular communities inhabiting the BDD today, as well as how traits are filtered across habitat gradients. Finally, the project uses a variety of genomic technologies, including whole genome sequencing and transcriptomics, to understand how organisms adapt to the more xeric habitats of the BDD as compared to close relatives living in adjacent mesic biomes. By linking evolutionary patterns in traits, communities and genes, the project will synthesize the functional, phylogenetic and genetic dimensions of biodiversity of the BDD and present a comprehensive portrait of its origins and evolution.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.

巴西干燥对角线（BDD）是一个宽阔的独特栖息地，夹在西部的亚马逊盆地与潮湿的热带和亚热带大西洋森林之间。尽管BDD可以表面上看起来是荒地，但实际上它拥有许多独特的物种，是巴西最濒危的栖息地，并且正在迅速失去农业和其他人类侵占。这项研究将是第一个从物种特征，社区和遗传学中综合信息的人，以了解生活在BDD中的生物的独特特征和社区如何发展。研究人员将使用各种各样的方法详细研究各种动物，植物和真菌，这些动物，植物和真菌居住在巴西中部的大量干燥栖息地，研究人员将评估：1）哪种特征，例如体型，形状或特定行为 - 允许一组生物体在新的环境中取得成功？ 2）新颖的环境如何确定我们今天看到的生物集 - 社区？ 3）生物如何在遗传和形态上适应这种新的环境？ 4）新颖的特征，社区和遗传变化如何相互作用以产生当今不同环境中看到的各种生物？这些问题的答案将提高科学家预测世界对生物多样性的影响的能力。该项目将通过与来自美国和巴西的大型专家团队参与，并为本科生，研究生和博士后研究人员提供跨学科的研究培训机会，从而促进新的国际研究合作。 为了实现上面列出的四个目标，该项目将首先使用用于BDD中数百个特征和谱系的机器学习方法，以确定哪些特征可以预测进化成功 - Xeric适应物种的趋势是经历进化多样性的趋势。然后，该项目将采用社区系统发育方法来了解功能性状变化如何分布在BDD中，并确定在当今居住在BDD的社区中观察到的特征值的进化模式和过度或过度分散，以及如何在跨栖息地梯度中过滤性状。最后，该项目使用各种基因组技术，包括整个基因组测序和转录组学，以了解生物体如何适应BDD的更奇异的栖息地，与居住在相邻MESIC生物群落中的近亲相比。通过将特征，社区和基因的进化模式联系起来，该项目将综合BDD生物多样性的功能，系统发育和遗传维度，并介绍其起源和进化的全面肖像。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过评估基金会的Merit和Broadial and Intfactial and tocriatial and Broadial and tocriatial and Broadial and tocriatial and Broadial and tocriatial and Broadial and tocriatial and tocriatial and tocriit and tocrit and tocrit。