This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $656,273 to the University of Montana to conduct collaborative research on the mechanisms and consequences of centromere drive in monkeyflowers. The project aims to investigate how genes and DNA sequences cause selfish centromere drive, how plants resist this drive, and the impacts on seed and pollen production. The research team will leverage new chromosome-scale genome...
This $442,310 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology supports a 5-year field research study on the Scarlet Monkeyflower (Mimulus cardinalis), a plant species found across varied climates in western North America. The research aims to understand how different climates influence the survival, growth, and reproduction of this plant species, and how this affects population persistence in the face of climate change. The study involves...
The National Science Foundation Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences awarded Scripps College a $923,538 Project Grant under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) from July 15, 2021 through June 30, 2025. The grant funds research into the role of the haploidizer gene in genome elimination by a selfish B chromosome. The Biological Sciences program aims to advance the field and strengthen the national scientific enterprise through basic biological research. This award supports...
This National Science Foundation project grant of $240,000 supports research investigating the genomic consequences of hybridization in the Mimulus guttatus complex from June 2023 through May 2026. Funded under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), the award enables a postdoctoral research fellowship for integrative research on the rules governing interactions between genomes, environments and phenotypes during speciation. The fellow will use genomic analyses and greenhouse crosses to...
This $999,999 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) will fund research at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center to elucidate the mechanisms initiating de novo chromatin modification cycles in plant cells. Over three years, the award will support experiments using cutting-edge techniques to dissect the molecular triggers establishing heritable DNA methylation patterns and long-term epigenetic silencing of transposable elements and...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Integrative Organismal Systems awarded a $233,411 Project Grant to Haverford College under the Biological Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.074) to systematically investigate the genomic and molecular bases of floral trait variation among three closely related species of monkeyflowers that exhibit distinct pollination syndromes. The key objectives are to: 1) Generate and use near-isogenic lines to genetically dissect the quantitative...
This two-year, $276,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation will fund research investigating the early stages of species diversification. The awardee will conduct integrative research examining how an organism's local environment shapes the evolution of its physical traits and genetic makeup. Specifically, the awardee will characterize incipient divergence among flowering plants by examining floral trait variation in the recently radiating Castilleja genus. Genomic and...
This $794,457 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) will support the development of new genetic analysis tools. The goal is to incorporate molecular and cellular biology knowledge, such as gene expression patterns and regulatory networks, directly into statistical models used to map genes, predict traits, and simulate changes in the genotype-to-phenotype relationships. The research will be conducted using simulated...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) Project Grant award of $240,000 provides funding for a postdoctoral research fellowship from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2027. The fellowship will support research and training to investigate the rules governing interactions between genomes, environment, and phenotypes, with a focus on understanding how repetitive DNA sequences, particularly a satellite repeat on the X chromosome of Drosophila melanogaster, influence...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) project grant award of $396,938, effective from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2028, will support a collaborative research project to investigate the genetic basis of complex floral trait adaptation between bee- and hummingbird-pollinated plant species. The research team, led by the University of South Carolina, will use advanced genomics technologies to identify specific DNA differences that underlie the integrated floral...