Kimberly Smith - US grants

A major goal of avian ecologists has been to quantify and explain patterns of species co-occurrence and community structure. Until recently, most emphasis in this area was placed on birds at temperate latitudes during the breeding season. However, because species may be subjected to the most stringent selective pressures during the nonbreeding seasons (winter and migration), ecologists in the 1980s have emphasized a year-round approach to the study of bird community structure and foraging ecology. In addition to those theoretical considerations, the unfortunate destruction of native tropical vegetation creates a need for immediate action to assess effects of habitat alteration on overwintering migrant and resident bird species. This study investigates a number of unresolved problems in neotropical bird ecology on wintering grounds and in migration. Specifically, effects of: (1) vegetation structure, (2) food resources, (3) presence of hetero- and conspecifics, and (4) season on the foraging ecology of and habitat use by migrant wood-warblers in Belize, Central America, and Tennessee will be assessed. Simultaneous quantification of the above variables will provide insight into their effects at the individual, population, and community levels. Integration of these results can elucidate the year-round ecological constraints imposed on populations of migrant neotropical birds that breed in temperate areas.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The candidate completed her M.D. and M.P.H. at the University of Michigan. During her residency in Internal Medicine she pursued her growing interest in clinical research and was awarded a Minority AIDS Training Grant from the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. She trained in Infectious Diseases, emphasizing HIV/AIDS; her research focused on HIV immunology. The primary objectives of this career development award will be to receive updated training in clinical research design, biostatistics, and research ethics, and to increase her knowledge of the basic and clinical science of immunology. The candidate's long-term goal is to become an independent clinical researcher and to focus her clinical research efforts on HIV immunology and the integration of immunology laboratory techniques and observations into therapeutic strategies. This research proposal explores a strategy for improving immune restoration in HIV- infected individuals who have achieved incomplete immune reconstitution following treatment with HAART. HIV disease is associated with progressive loss of CD4+ T-lymphocytes of both na[unreadable]ve and memory phenotype and consequently a loss of immune response to specific antigens and HIV itself. Following treatment with HAART, improvements in CD4+ lymphocytes are observed in most patients. Importantly, in many patients cellular restoration following HAART is incomplete. Naive and memory CD4 cell counts improve but do not return to the levels seen in HIV seronegative persons. Furthermore, although improvements in immune response to antigens have been described, restoration of immune competence is incomplete and HIV specific immune responses remain weak or absent in most subjects despite long-term therapy. There is evidence to suggest the incompleteness of immune restoration following HAART results at least in part from a limitation in the ability of the thymus to produce new cells. Studies have shown that growth hormone therapy is associated with increases in thymic mass, improvement in thymic function, and lymphocyte proliferation in animals. In addition, there is evidence that administration of growth hormone leads to improvements in HIV specific responses in HIV infected adults following vaccination with HIV antigens. The candidate proposes that administration of growth hormone to HIV infected adults with incomplete immune restoration following HAART will lead to improvements in cellular immune restoration and cell mediated response to antigens.

The University of Arkansas will provide an integrated research experience for three cohorts of 10 undergraduate students, each working with federally recognized Native American Tribes in Oklahoma, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Students will begin with a two-week immersion course on Experimental Design and an Exploration of Sustainability Ethics across cultures (Module 1), followed by a six week Research Experience (Module 2), and concluding with a one week intensive program in Data Analysis and Scientific Communications (module 3) where students will draft, review, revise, and submit written and oral reports of their work. The focus of the work will be measuring, managing, and restoring ecosystem services in a sustainable framework. The REU program will develop student skills thru the process of developing testable hypotheses, collecting and analyzing data, and communicating results in both oral and in written form. The cohort groups will work with a faculty advisor from the Project Team, as well as Environmental Program Officers within the Cherokee, Pawnee and Santee Sioux Nation Tribal programs. The program will emphasize the process of science, the ethic of sustainability, and the cultural connections of ecology with tribal traditions. Students will work with faculty and graduate students on projects ranging from GIS-land use analysis to nutrient spiraling in streams to bird/mammal surveys in riparian zones. More information is available at http://www.baeg.uark.edu/REUSustainableTribes/, or by contacting Dr Marty Matlock at mmatlock@uark.edu or 479/575-2849.

Because migratory birds travel across political and cultural boundaries, their study and conservation requires collaboration between countries and cultures. Such collaboration is now commonplace in the Northern Hemisphere, but it has lagged behind in South America due to obstacles in communication, lack of standardization, and lack of funds. To overcome these obstacles and catalyze international research on bird migration in South America, this award supports a workshop to form the Aves Internacionales Network (in Portuguese: "Rede Aves Internacionais"; in Spanish: "Red Aves Internacionales"). The workshop, which is co-organized by Miguel Marini of the Universidade de Brasilia (Brazil), Victor Cueto of the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Ana Maria Mamani of the Museo de Historia Natural Noel Kempff Mercado (Bolivia), will coincide with the 25th International Ornithological Congress (IOC) in Campos do Jordão, Brazil, in August 2010. Research topics generated by workshop participants will center around two interrelated goals: (1) developing hypotheses on bird migration in South America and collecting data to test those hypotheses, and (2) testing hypotheses on how bird migration differs in South and North America. In combination, these two goals will provide a new, geographically broader perspective about how and why New World birds migrate.

This workshop aims to develop a research agenda based on questions that cannot be answered by any single research group, but which require international collaboration across North and South America. Participants will be drawn from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and the United States, and will include active members of MIGRATE, a NSF-funded program to study migration in the Northern Hemisphere. Many of the workshop participants will be students or young professionals, personally committed to fostering long-term partnerships with international colleagues. The workshop will contribute to knowledge about socially relevant issues such as climate change, land-use patterns, and the avian spread of diseases, and will also generate a series of education-based activities in both North and South America.