NSF announces new awards for research to better understand Earth's biodiversity
IMAGE: Projects simultaneously explore ecological and evolutionary processes to grasp synergistic impact view more
Credit: Carla Atkinson, University of Alabama
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing over $18 million in 10 new projects to research processes in nature and their complex interactions with climate, land use and invasive species at local, regional and continental scales. The awards are funded through NSF's Dimensions of Biodiversity program in the agency's environmental biology division.
Despite centuries of discovery, most of our planet's biodiversity remains unknown. The scale of the unknown diversity on Earth is especially troubling given the rapid and permanent loss of biodiversity across the globe. The goal of the Dimensions of Biodiversity campaign is to transform how we describe and understand the scope and role of life on Earth.
"This research is unique in that multiple dimensions of biodiversity are addressed simultaneously," said Joanne Tornow, acting assistant director for NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences. "These are novel approaches that intend to get at synergistic roles of critical ecological and evolutionary processes."
This campaign promotes novel integrative approaches to fill the most substantial gaps in our understanding of the diversity of life on Earth. It takes a broad view of biodiversity, and focuses on the intersection of genetic, phylogenetic and functional dimensions of biodiversity. The projects all integrate these three dimensions to understand interactions and feedback among them.
This year's funded projects include:
Processes that generate and maintain phylogenetic, genetic, and functional diversity of the freshwater mussel holobiont across multiple scales, Carla Atkinson, University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; and Colin Jackson, University of Mississippi US-BIOTA-Sao Paulo: Traits as predictors of adaptive diversification along the Brazilian Dry Diagonal, Scott Edwards, Harvard University; Kelly Zamudio, Cornell University; Xianfa Xie, Virginia State University; Bryan Carstens, Ohio State University; and Frank Burbrink, American Museum Natural History; Vera Solferini, University of Campinas (co-funded with the São Paulo Research Foundation of Brazil) Diversity and constraint in the germination niche: Implications for persistence in a biodiversity hotspot, Jennifer Gremer, University of California-Davis The cyanobacterial bloom microbial interactome as a model for understanding patterns in functional biodiversity, Karl Hambright, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus; Hans Paerl, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Alan Wilson, Auburn University; and Morgan Steffen, James Madison University The role of microbial biodiversity in controlling nitrous oxide emissions from soils, Konstantinos Konstantinidis, Georgia Tech; Wendy Yang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Frank Loeffler, University of Tennessee Knoxville Integrating phylogenetics, ecophysiology, and transcriptomics to understand the diversity of hornwort-cyanobacterium symbiosis, Fay-Wei Li, Boyce Thompson Institute of Plant Research; John Meeks, University of California-Davis; and Jed Sparks, Cornell University The roles of phylogeny, genome content, and functional performance traits in the evolution and assembly of a diverse Methylobacterium community, Christopher Marx, University of Idaho Ordering the microbial world into natural genetic, ecological, and functional units, Howard Ochman, University of Texas at Austin The causes and consequences of leaf trait evolution for hidden life on the phyllosphere: Phylogeny, function, and the genome, Marjorie Weber, Michigan State University Eco-evolutionary drivers of diversity in toxic algal blooms, Jennifer Wisecaver, Purdue University###
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