NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2020

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, Research Using Biological Collections. The fellowship supports research and training of the Fellow that will utilize biological collections in innovative ways. Effective oceanic resource management requires knowledge of how resources respond to the environment.

However, the basic structures of food webs supporting oceanic resources remain poorly understood. In the case of large predators, we often know what they eat but not how they choose what to eat, or which other predators they compete with for food. To understand how large predators like tuna and billfish choose their food, this project will examine prey traits such as body shape and behavior.

By doing so, this research will condense diverse diets into general rules used by predators to select prey. Comparing these rules among predators will produce insights into the structure of oceanic food webs. Identifying predators that compete for similar prey types will help us understand how changes in the distributions of predators and prey will impact oceanic food web structure.

The Fellow will promote diverse participation in science by (1) working with the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Team at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) to establish a journal club that examines bias and discrimination in scientific disciplines, and (2) creating public curricula on oceanic ecology.

This project will bridge predator feeding habits data at NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and physical prey specimens housed at SIO to facilitate a meta-analysis of oceanic food web structure in the Southern California Current Ecosystem (SCCE). The Fellow will (1) develop a trait-based analysis framework to describe the rules used by predators to select prey, and (2) quantify trait-based resource partitioning among tunas and billfishes in the SCCE.

The robustness of this trait framework will be tested by quantifying variability in prey selection rules for predator feeding habits studied both in the SCCE (eutrophic upwelling system) and the central North Pacific (oligotrophic gyre system). The Fellow will receive advanced analytical training in the application of trait-based food web models as well as training in the mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students.

To engage diverse communities in STEM education and research, the Fellow will develop an outreach program in collaboration with NOAA, SIO, and the San Diego County Office of Education that uses fish stomach dissections to introduce students to biological oceanography, data analysis, and human impacts on the ocean.

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.