NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2020: Development and Evolution of Olfactory Perception in Response to Temperature

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, 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 project will examine gene expression, brain structure, and behavior of fish raised under different thermal conditions.

The fellow will conduct research to investigate how temperature experienced during development affects brain development, which will provide an understanding of how organisms maintain or alter reproductive behaviors in the face of global climate change. Environmental temperatures alter the expression of genes, and can change how organisms grow and develop.

The project will also assess the potential for evolutionary pressures to act upon different genes that respond to changing temperatures. The work will provide the fellow training in molecular, physiological and bioinformatic techniques, as well as professional development in the life sciences. The project will provide research opportunities to many underrepresented undergraduate students at a public university, and the fellow will take part in outreach activities designed to engage girls and underrepresented minority students in STEM fields.

This project will explore relationships between temperature and development of the brain, by measuring the growth and function of olfactory processing centers throughout development. Expression of the sonic hedgehog gene regulates the dorsal-ventral patterning of vertebrate brain regions during development, which may impact an organism's fitness by altering sensory processing.

Temperature is a pervasive part of the environment, capable of influencing many developmental processes and expected to change around the world in years to come. The fellow will generate reaction norms of sonic hedgehog expression during development under different ecologically relevant temperatures and quantify effects on neuroanatomy. The life long-consequences of these temperature effects will be evaluated by behaviorally and physiologically measuring the detection of socially relevant olfactory stimuli in different parts of the telencephalon of the adult organism.

The project will also measure differential expression of the entire transcriptome under different temperatures and use phylogenetic analysis to explore the potential for evolutionary processes to provide supplemental, or alternative, methods of response to temperature. The fellow will be trained in front-line biological techniques to expand their research abilities and generate public outreach through educational experiences and online dissemination.

The project bears societal implications for biodiversity and conservation management in response to global climate change. To broaden the impact of the work, the fellow will engage students from underrepresented groups in the research and conduct outreach to girls to increase participation in STEM.

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.