Postdoctoral Fellowship: PRFB: Investigating plant-butterfly dynamics across changing landscapes

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2024, 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 project will address how variation in habitat quality affects native plant-butterfly networks, including several butterfly species known to migrate between the western United States and Mexico.

The results of this project will inform land managers and conservation practitioners of best practices for planning and employing approaches that protect migratory routes. The fellow will conduct research in collaboration with land managers, private landowners, collaborators throughout Baja California, and the public to monitor butterfly populations and movements.

Thus, this project will provide an opportunity to directly broaden participation in STEM while supporting binational conservation efforts. In addition, the fellow will provide K-12 educational outreach at underserved schools and will use community science data collection projects to inform scientific research and cultivate a connection between humans and nature.

To understand how management intensities within protected natural areas shape plant-butterfly networks, this research will elucidate how variation in plant community structure resulting from management activities interacts with butterfly life history traits to shape insect communities and habitat use in California coastal sage scrub habitats. The fellow will collect field data and use existing archival data which will provide insights into plant community composition and butterfly habitat use across a management gradient.

Additionally, the fellow will receive training in using species distribution modeling to broaden our understanding of how projected land use and global change will affect plant-butterfly networks. The findings of this work will also give insights into how various environmental stressors impact U.S.-Mexico butterfly populations and movements which have implications for binational efforts to promote ecosystem recovery and resilience.

Through outreach work with stakeholders and in schools, the project will increase public understanding of science.

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.