NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2023, 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. During spring migration, hundreds of individuals of migrating birds arrive at stopover sites under extreme energetic demands and time constraints, while the residents they encounter are preparing to breed. Though largely unknown, the interactions between resident and migrating birds in these landscapes are likely common and intense. Residents could provide crucial social information about habitat quality to migrating birds in unfamiliar landscapes or competitively exclude migrants from refueling sites. Furthermore, climate change has induced species-specific changes in the timing of migration and reproduction, potentially creating novel community assemblages and transforming migrant-resident interactions during stopover. The Fellow’s proposed studies will be among the first to investigate migrant-resident interactions during stopover and will significantly advance our understanding of (1) migration ecology and climate change biology, fields that have tended to focus on species- and population-, rather than community-, level questions; (2) avian physiology, which typically treats migration and breeding as two distinct phases, overlooking how their overlap may significantly affect behavior and species interactions; and (3) community ecology with its central theories of competition and species coexistence that are not usually extended to compositional changes at such short time scales. The Fellow aims to broaden participation in STEM through the development of a near-peer mentoring program for biology undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs in a rural Appalachian community. Using 60 years of data from a long-term migration monitoring banding station, the Fellow will compare historical and current stopover community compositions and species social networks to test whether species-specific changes in migration phenology have altered community assemblages and migrant-resident interactions. In the field, the Fellow will use playback of resident songs to test for the role of social information or competition between residents and incoming migrants, and the extent to which species interactions depend on migrant energetic and reproductive condition. The project will also leverage long-term banding data to assess whether resident space use, body condition, and social network associations change during periods of high migrant abundance. The Fellow will receive training in a range of research techniques, gain mentoring experience, and expand her professional network. The near-peer mentoring program will help participants gain academic skills, mentoring experience, a community of peers, and a deeper understanding of barriers to 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.