NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2014

NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology combine research and training components to prepare young scientists for careers in biology and require a plan to broaden participation of groups under-represented in science and engineering. The fellowships advance NSF efforts to diversify the STEM workforce now and in the future. This fellowship to Tim Mitchell supports research on the influence of the social environment on strategies for survival and reproduction in lizards. Training goals include techniques from ecology, evolution and genetics. The host institution is the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the sponsoring scientist is Daniel Warner. The plans to broaden participation of groups under-represented in science are twofold: to develop a hands-on evolutionary ecology unit at a Birmingham City public high school that exposes students to scientific research and to communicate cutting-edge science and stories from a diverse range of high-quality scientists to 6-12 grade audiences through the creation of a website and collaboration with Youngzine, an online youth magazine.

The primary research objective is experimentally to evaluate the influence of population age structure on plasticity in life-history traits in wild island populations of brown anole lizards. Closely related focal hatchling lizards are being released onto replicate small islands with manipulated age structures. These populations either lack an adult population entirely or have a typical density of adult lizards. Accurate measurements of key life-history traits, which are predicted to vary in response to age structure, are being obtained with mark-recapture on molecular methods. This research tests fundamental predictions of life history theory and explores the role of life-history plasticity in the adaptation of a free-ranging vertebrate.