Postdoctoral Fellowship: PRFB: Linking phenotypes to environments via thermal physiology across replicate lizard ecomorphs

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2025. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to biology in innovative ways. This research will address how lizards respond to temperature and humidity across environments and as a function of their physical characteristics.

Lizards cannot regulate their body temperatures outside of their environment’s temperature – therefore, elucidating form-function-environment relationships in these animals is especially important to understand how they may respond to future environmental change. The fellow will conduct research with students and collaborators in the southwestern United States and Mexico.

In addition to mentorship of undergraduate students in the lab and the field, the fellow will conduct outreach activities in English and Spanish using 3D-printed lizard models and lead field safety workshops. The combined actions of this research will lead to a better understanding of organismal responses in changing environments and promote connectivity between humans and local, observable wildlife.

This research will move towards a framework that mechanistically links phenotypes and environments via thermal physiology in a species-rich group of lizards (genus Sceloporus). Leveraging ecomorphological replicates in this study system, the research will experimentally determine whether shared phenotypes lead to predictable physiological responses across environments.

Specifically, the fellow will use 3D morphometrics, high-resolution climate data, and physiological trials across species at multiple field sites to identify specific phenotypic and environmental factors that influence physiological responses. Additionally, this research will assess the long-term evolutionary dynamics of phenotype and physiology as a function of climate.

By generating a time-calibrated species tree for the group and developing phylogenetic mechanistic niche modeling tools, the research will increase our understanding of how environmental variables shape trait dynamics, distributions, and coevolutionary relationships. Finally, the research will determine how the thermal niche integrates with other aspects of ectotherm ecology to shape biotic interactions (e.g., niche partitioning) across communities, and how these relationships vary across environments.

The fellow will receive training in physiological experimentation, phylogenetic inference, mechanistic niche modeling, and phylogenetic comparative methods. Planned training activities include courses and working groups on ecophysiology, phylogenetics, field safety, and science communication in English and Spanish.

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.