Thomas H. Kunz, PhD - US grants

Stable isotope analysis is potentially one of the most exciting techniques that has emerged in recent years. While the use of stable isotopes in ecology and the need for such studies have expanded rapidly, stable isotope ratio measurements require complex and costly equipment. However, the use of stable isotopes in animal and plant physiological ecology and ecosystem ecology are among the few areas in ecology where the rate of progress has been limited by the availability of instrumentation. The full extent to which stable isotope analyses will be used to solve problems in ecological research is yet to be determined. In this proposal, we are requesting funds to purchase an isotope ration mass spectrometer and the necessary preparation devices to process biological tissues and fluids. As a part of recent facility developments, Boston University has designed space for a stable isotope laboratory in its new (under construction) Biology Research Laboratories. This facility is conceived as a multi-user isotopes of particular interest to animal and plant physiological ecologists, and ecosystem ecologists.

This award provides funds to establish an NSF-REU Sites project in the Department of Biology at Boston University for ten students. Past experience has shown that NSF awards for undergraduate research have stimulated many previous participants to become productive scholars. Six cross- disciplinary, team-oriented projects will provide each group of two students with the opportunity to work closely with two experienced faculty mentors on a common project. The emphasis on the REU site project is to promote research interactions between students and research biologists whose disciplines are traditionally focused on different sub- disciplines in Biology. Collaborative research topics include: the effects of heavy metal uptake on reproduction in dogfish shark, regulation of neurotransmitters during development, intensity of selection in environmentally induced mutations, establishment of cell lines from endangered species, adrenocortical activity in captive bats, and mechanisms of gene induction in retinal cells. Faculty mentors have been carefully selected on the basis of their experience in the classroom, research contacts with undergraduates, and their own research contributions. The participating faculty mentors have a broad spectrum of research interests and are represented by both beginning and establish investigators. Qualified undergraduates will be recruited mostly form regional four-year colleges that do not provide significant opportunities for research and from Boston University. The Program will recruit five students from local and regional colleges and five from Boston University. Recruitment efforts will specifically target minority, women, and physically challenged students. Selection procedures will be based on scholarly aptitude, research potential, and previous experience. Students will be expected to live on the university campus and to participate in the full range of research opportunities, weekly discussions, and social gatherings to foster a sense of community among students and faculty mentors. A special ethics component will focus on issues such as standards of scientific integrity, authorship responsibility, information privacy and protection, ethical treatment of animals, alternative animal models, conflict of interest, and plagiarism.

9321745 Kunz In nature, the energy an adult devotes to reproduction will affect not only the survival of a particular litter, but its ability to produce future offspring. Pregnancy and lactation place especially high energy and nutrient demands on the female, which may increase her susceptibility to starvation or disease. Thus, energy devoted to pregnancy and lactation must be counterbalanced against the female's future reproductive potential. Compromise must also be reached in balancing length of gestation against duration of lactation. Gestation is relatively inexpensive compared to lactation, as nutrients can be transferred directly to the developing young and thermoregulatory costs are minimal. However, transport of the growing fetus can impede normal daily activities and increase risk of predation. Patterns of energy expenditure during pregnancy and lactation should thus reflect the costs of maintaining and transporting a fetus versus feeding and caring for developing young.%%% The goal of the proposed research is to conduct a series of field and laboratory experiments to measure the cost associated with pregnancy in an omnivorous tropical bat, Phyllostomus hastatus. Daily energy expenditure and allocation will be quantified by measuring field metabolic rate (using doubly-labeled water) and body composition (through isotope dilution) of females at progressive stages of pregnancy. Nocturnal time-budgets of foraging females will be constructed using radio-telemetry to test the hypothesis that foraging time is a trade-off between supplying the growing needs of the fetus and minimizing the cost of transporting a developing embryo. Diet composition and nutritional content will be analyzed to determine how diet composition correlates with the cost imposed by pregnancy. Completion of these projects will be integrated with comparable data in the same species to provide important insights into the costs and compromises associated with reproduc tion in an omnivorous volant mammal.***

9322186 Kunz This award provides funds to continue a successful REU SITE at Boston University. Five cross-disciplinary, team-oriented projects will provide each group of two students with opportunities to work closely with two experienced faculty mentors on a collaborative project. The emphasis on this REU Site project is to promote collaborative research among students and research biologists whose disciplines have traditionally focused on different sub-disciplines. Collaborative research topics include: expression of bacterial proteins, mechanisms of gene induction in retinal cells, hormonal responses to stress in bats, kinship and population processes in voles, and termite foraging ecology and wood chemistry. Faculty mentors have been carefully selected on the basis of their experience with undergraduates in the classroom, research contacts with undergraduates, and their own scholarly contributions. Five students will be selected from regional, four-year colleges that do not provide significant opportunities for research and five will be selected from students attending Boston University. Recruitment efforts will specifically target minority, women, and physically-challenged students. Selection procedures will be based on scholarly aptitude, research potential, and previous experience. An ethics component with weekly seminars on topics such as ethical treatment of animals, record keeping and data management, values and integrity in science, responsibility of authorship, and reporting and investigating allegations of misconduct. This ethics component will be shared with REU students from Wellesley College and the University of Massachusetts (Boston Campus), and joint seminars, activities, and field trips have been planned in collaboration with REU programs at these regional institutions. ***

9701057 Kunz Populations of social mammals typically are subdivided into semi-isolated breeding groups maintained by behavioral impediments to dispersal. Such socially-mediated constraints on genetic exchange have been proposed to increase the magnitude of random drift (chance fluctuations in the frequencies of gene variants from one generation to the next) and genetic divergence among breeding groups, thereby enhancing rates of evolutionary change. According to this hypothesis, the diversifying influence of random drift, operating independently within behaviorally-segregated breeding groups, is of sufficient magnitude to overpower the homogenizing effect of genetic exchange within and among populations. The objective of the present study is to test this prediction by analyzing the distribution of genetic variation in natural populations of a highly social mammal, the short nosed fruit bat (Cynopterus sphinx), in peninsular India. The degree of genetic subdivision within and among populations will be assessed in terms of (2) the frequencies of gene variants encoded by the nuclear genome and (2) the frequencies and genealogies of mitochondrial DNA sequences. The genetic consequences of social structure will be examined by assessing the distribution of genetic variation within and among three levels of hierarchical subdivision: individuals, harem social groups, and geographic populations. This nested hierarchy provides a framework for examining the way in which patterns of mating, dispersal, and new social group formation influence population-genetic structure.

Kunz 9801137 Bats are highly social mammals, and for species with complex social structures, individual recognition is important. Among bats, a combination of visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory cues are used to assess individuals, roost sites, and colony members. While auditory and visual systems have been well studied, interestingly the olfactory system of mammals has received little attention. The purpose of the present study is to establish the importance of olfactory communication in bats, and to apply this knowledge for conservation and pest management. Behavioral tests will identify the role of olfaction in kin recognition in little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) and big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus). Females often roost in large colonies in which they must identify their own pups. Y-maze test will present females with choices between kin and foreign scents to establish whether olfaction plays a role in mother-pup recognition in these species. Behavioral assays will set the stage for the investigation of the role of olfaction in the social interactions of bats. Chemical analysis of odors from selected bats will be collected to assess whether odor chemistry mirrors the evolutionary history among related species and will be used to test the potential use of human olfaction as a probe into chemical communication in bats. Constituents of odors will be analyzed using gas chromatograpahy olfactometry (GCO). GCO coupled with behavioral tests is expected to emerge as an important tool for investigating mammalian behavioral ecology and provide important avenues for research into the attraction of bats which are economically important as pollinators and predators of insect pests.

The Brazilian free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) forms some of the largest aggregations of mammals known to mankind, with single caves in south-central Texas housing upwards to 20 million individuals. Although it is commonly assumed that these aerial predators feed on insect populations in both natural and managed ecosystems, relatively little is known about their population densities and nightly foraging behavior. In this three-year study, the density, composition, diet, and foraging behavior of Brazilian free-tailed bat populations in south- central Texas are being measured and modeled for use with previously published data on food habits, pesticide use, and crop production to evaluate the impact of these bats on agricultural production. Population densities and spatial patterns of foraging bats are being assessed using advanced infrared and Doppler radar imaging to provide the basic data for GIS analysis. Remote sensing methods and the resulting integrated economic model have important applications for assessing demographic and behavioral characteristics of other animal species and their economic impact on selected terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

9875871
Widmaier
The existence of a circulating factor that regulates body weight in mammals has long been postulated. This hormone, now known as leptin, was identified in 1994, and found to be secreted from adipose (fat) tissue. Leptin signals the brain to reduce appetite and increase metabolic rate. Recently, it has become apparent that leptin levels in the blood are elevated during pregnancy in several mammalian species, including human beings. This, and other evidence, has led to the hypothesis that leptin may play previously unrecognized but important roles in the maintenance of pregnancy and the preparation for lactation. The work proposed in this application is designed to investigate this hypothesis, first by determining what tissues secrete leptin during pregnancy, then by determining what factors control its secretion, and ultimately determining what functions leptin performs in the pregnant animal. These goals will be facilitated by the ability to measure small amounts of leptin production from animal tissues in the culture dish. Dr. Widmaier proposes that the placenta becomes a significant source of circulating leptin during pregnancy and that reproductive hormones like estrogen and cortisol stimulate leptin production in placenta. Dr. Widmaier also proposes that the brain becomes less sensitive to leptin during pregnancy, permitting an increased appetite during pregnancy. These questions will be examined in free-ranging bats. A better appreciation of the hormonal correlates of reproduction will not only improve our ability to treat reproductive disorders in people, but will increase our ability to successfully maintain populations of ecologically important animal species. Finally, a better appreciation of the actions of leptin and the control of its secretion will improve our understanding of body weight pathologies in human and animal populations.

ABSTRACT Thomas Kunz Proposal # DBI - 9988001


Eight research teams, each consisting of one or two undergraduate students and two faculty mentors, will work on different collaborative cross-disciplinary projects. The purpose of Boston University's REU program is to promote collaborative research between students and research biologists whose disciplines have traditionally had a single focus. Each research team includes an organismal biologist (ecologist or ethologist) and an endocrinologist or molecular biologist. Proposed research topics include: the role of leptin in the reproductive biology of mammals, the immune response of termites to pathogens, the role of estrogen in
neurodevelopment in fish, neurochemical correlates of caste differences in social insects, genetic population structure in a temperate bat species, social behavior and population genetics structure in Ovenbirds, evolution of the vertebrate genome by phylogenetic analysis of vertebrate isozymes, and programmed cell death during plant development. Faculty mentors have been carefully selected on the basis of their experience and interest in working with undergraduates and on their own scholarly contributions. Five students will be selected from four-year colleges and universities in the eastern United States that provide limited research opportunities, and five students will be selected from a pool of students at Boston University. Recruitment efforts will target minority, women, and physically-challenged students. Selection procedures will be based on scholarly aptitude, research potential, and previous experience of the applicants. A weekly research and ethics seminar will include presentations and discussions on topics ranging from values and integrity in science, reporting and investigating allegations of misconduct, ethical treatment of animals, record keeping and data management, and responsible authorship.

Insectivorous bats are a highly diverse yet vulnerable component of vertebrate diversity in Old World rainforests. Nowhere is this more evident than in peninsular Malaysia, a critical country for bat conservation, with over 100 known species and local richness in excess of 50 species. Bats that are highly specialized and dependent on rainforests represent an exceptionally diverse group in Malaysia (> 40 species) and are of particular conservation concern. They are poorly suited for prey detection and forage in more open habitats that arise from disturbance events. As a consequence, they are likely to experience a severe decline in diversity as forest habitats are lost or become fragmented. This project will establish the Malaysian Bat Conservation Research Unit, comprising U.S. and Malaysian researchers. The mission of the unit includes: 1) long-term research on bat diversity and conservation; 2) the development and acquisition of skills and resources in the host country; and 3) implementation of a local and web-based education program to highlight the diversity and biology of bats, as well as the international importance of Malaysia to bat conservation. Research will focus on establishing how patterns of species abundance and distribution vary across space and time in undisturbed forest, and identifying the ecological processes that influence these patterns. To this end, we will intensively survey six bat communities within an area of contiguous primary forest and implement radio-tracking studies to test the influence of roosting and foraging ecology on bat abundance and distribution. Both research foci are key considerations for the development of conservation programs to protect this unique fauna.

Collectively, rodents and bats comprise roughly 75% of all known mammalian species. Within the Chiroptera, temperate bats such as the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) play critical ecological and economic roles in the United States and elsewhere. For example, these species are important in controlling insect populations, which would otherwise flourish in the absence of insectivorous bats. Understanding the regulation of basic reproductive processes in these species is therefore of vital concern, but surprisingly many fundamental aspects of reproductive control are still unclear in bats. The use of a comparative approach will provide information on the ubiquity in nature of these regulatory processes. Recently, the so-called obesity hormone, leptin, has been suggested to serve a role in mammalian reproduction. This hypothesis originally arose from the observation that levels of leptin in blood of pregnant animals increase considerably. Leptin's established functions are to suppress appetite and stimulate metabolic rate when body weight increases. As fat mass in the body increases, adipose cells secrete leptin into the blood, which signals the brain that sufficient fat reserves are available. Whether leptin exerts regulatory effects during reproduction is still uncertain. Also uncertain is the mechanism(s) by which plasma leptin levels are elevated during pregnancy. Recent evidence suggests that both the placenta and adipose tissue are important in secreting leptin during pregnancy, and that leptin may not only be secreted by the placenta, but may act on it as well (e.g., to promote its growth and development). In this project the regulatory factors that influence leptin secretion from both tissue sources during this energetically-demanding period of a mammal's life history will be identified. Further proposed experiments will permit determination of whether leptin is actively synthesized from placentas of rodents and bats. Finally, experiments will provide tests of the hypothesis that changes in expression of brain leptin receptors account in part for observed leptin-insensitivity during pregnancy (i.e., the ability of pregnant females to continue eating above a normal amount despite elevated levels of this appetite-suppressing hormone). Such experiments may help explain why some people are apparently insensitive to the appetite-suppressing effects of leptin. These studies will extend our knowledge of reproductive processes in Chiroptera, specifically, of the placenta as a mammalian endocrine organ, and will also be applicable to other mammalian orders, since the control of leptin secretion during pregnancy appears similar in bats and humans, for example. Elucidation of the sequence of leptin and its receptor in bats will provide useful probes for detecting the presence of receptor in brain and placenta, and aid in future phylogenetic and structure/function analyses of the protein. This project will also contribute to science education by including numerous undergraduate students who will participate in various phases of the project, plus several graduate students or post-doctoral fellows. These students will gain valuable dual experience in field and laboratory biology, while engaged in an extremely topical project with wide-ranging ramifications and benefits to society at large. The PI and the co-PI have a long and successful history of promoting science through research and teaching at all levels, from K-12 through college, and continuing education of high school science teachers. It is anticipated that this trend will continue with this new project.

This award supports the purchase of an Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer, an Autoanalyzer, and related peripheral equipment for the stable isotope laboratory at Boston University. The laboratory provides service for a significant number of researchers at the University and at other institutions in the area who use stable isotope analysis to answer questions in ecosystem ecology, animal physiology, marine food web dynamics, coastal biogeochemistry, and paleo-oceanography. Besides increasing basic knowledge in these areas, the data to be obtained will contribute to the management of highly eutrophied coastal areas and to pest control practices in agriculture.

A grant has been awarded to Dr. Thomas Kunz at Boston University to acquire an
advanced infrared thermal (IRT) imaging system to investigate the ecology and behavior of animals and plants. The instrumentation is prepared for rugged fieldwork and includes a high resolution infrared camera and lenses, video-signal electronics for real-time data acquisition, and small computer with specialized software for operation. The system accurately measures the surface temperature of organisms and objects without making physical contact. Detailed observations of plants and animals can be made in total darkness and without impinging on an organism's normal activities. The highly sensitive data enables further inferences to be made about metabolic activity and behavior for known organisms under investigation. Research projects involve a variety of animal and plant species and address problems in thermoregulation and behavior, ecosystem mass and energy exchange, and biological field assessments in difficult environmental situations.

The IRT system will be utilized for studies that address behavior, ecology, and
physiological requirements for species of bats, lizards, migratory, ground-nesting birds, and carnivorous plants. Thermoregulation in lizards, insects, carnivorous plants, and several bat species will be investigated. Ground-based thermal imaging data to assess variation in energy balance from soils, individual leaves, and entire vegetation canopies will enable validation of computer models and space-based thermal remote sensing of land surfaces. Census data will be collected of migratory, ground-nesting birds and Brazilian free-tailed bats; field surveys will be made of foliage roosting bats. Several proposed studies involve the ecologically-important, Brazilian free-tailed bats which roost in the Southwest U.S. These particular bats provide one of the most impressive examples of a continental-scale, natural pest-control service in North America through consumption of enormous quantities of agricultural pests that could ultimately affect the Central U.S. corn belt. IRT technology will produce reliable estimates of the size and activity of the bat colonies, quantify aspects of insect life cycle and infestation, and ultimately link levels of bat activity and feeding with levels of insect infestation, crop damage, and the need for pesticides. Studies are proposed that will provide a better understanding of the behavior and ecological impact of a variety of animal species, provide new insight into the life processes of carnivorous plants, and validate larger-scale, space-based, remote sensing data and computer models for large land areas.

The broader scope of research with this instrumentation is to develop a clearer picture of
the complex processes within an ecosystem that regulate how water, energy, and carbon are exchanged between soil and vegetation. Research projects will also provide training
opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral scientists. Projects will also use the visually striking images captured by the IRT system to communicate new discoveries to a broad public audience via articles in popular media, textbooks, TV, and on the world wide web.

Abstract - NSF Proposal 0224822 (Phillips, Kunz, Rubendall, Woodcock)

A grant has been awarded to Boston University, under the direction of Dr. Phillips, Dr. Kunz, Mr. Rubendall, and Dr. Woodcock, to make physical improvements in environmental data acquisition and communications infrastructure at Sargent Center for Outdoor Education (SCOE), a field station of Boston University located in southern New Hampshire. SCOE is a unique environment for field studies, containing a wide range of terrestrial and aquatic habitats, but this field station is currently under-exploited for research and education. The goal of this project is to utilize data acquisition and communications improvements to enhance ecological research and education opportunities at SCOE. The scope of the project is broad both in terms of providing data coverage from four distinct terrestrial and aquatic habitats, and in terms of making these data available to a large and diverse range of students, educators, and researchers from the New England region and around the world. This project will greatly further the central goal of SCOE, to facilitate greater understanding and appreciation of the human relationship to the environment, and contribute to making a difference in the world's social and environmental future.

The exact work to be done is as follows. The principal investigators will direct the installation of a state of the art, spatially distributed system for automatically collecting and transmitting environmental data from a wide variety of habitats to a central base receiving station at SCOE. The base station will be linked to the Internet for remote data access and display for off-site education and research. The main elements of this system are: (1) environmental sensors and data loggers for data collection from four major habitats at SCOE (forest, meadow, aquatic, and small mammal habitats); (2) radio telemetry units to send data from all habitats to a central base station; and (3) a radio base station and a web-connected computer server to receive, manage and disseminate data both within a local area network and to the Internet. In addition, to provide physical access to the forest canopy in support of automated data acquisition, in situ research, and educational activities, NSF funds will support the construction of a secure walk-up canopy access tower. This canopy access tower will provide a unique facility at SCOE to study the spatial and functional complexity of forest ecosystems from a wide range of academic perspectives.

With funding for this proposal, scientists from Boston University and outside collaborators will be able to pursue ecological research and integrated ecological education at SCOE. These activities will include research training for graduate students, research experiences for undergraduate students, and educational outreach for school children from diverse backgrounds. At the graduate level, a recently developed, interdepartmental field course at SCOE, entitled "Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity", will benefit greatly from the proposed improvements. At the undergraduate level, the requested equipment and infrastructure will directly benefit 16 courses within the Environmental Science major at Boston University. The proposed improvements will also be used to improve educational outreach to school children participating in five specific Environmental Studies courses currently offered at SCOE. In all of the above educational and research applications, the equipment requested will be used to investigate how critical environmental variables control a diversity of ecological processes, including small mammal function and reproduction in shelter habitat; environmental and biophysical variables important for land-atmosphere interactions in forest habitat, including light, temperature, humidity, and their gradients from canopy top to soil; forest structural variables that control forest carbon gain, including leaf area and phenology; soil science and biogeochemistry; and environmental variables critical to aquatic and amphibian species survival, reproduction, and conservation.

Intellectual Merit of the Proposed Activity
Millions of Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) voraciously consume enormous quantities of insects each summer night throughout the southwestern United States. These bats provide an agricultural pest control service little understood by the scientific community and policy makers. The proposed effort will evaluate the nationwide ecological and economic impact of this species on both natural and agricultural ecosystems. The project is innovative in its development of information technology and unique in its complexity and scale. It requires the collaborative efforts of computer scientists, applied mathematicians, meteorologists, ecologists, and ecological economists. Proposed activities involve:
1. Sensing Technologies.-Design, develop, deploy, and evaluate algorithms and systems for thermal, ultrasonic, and radar sensing of millions of bats and insect pests. Such algorithms and systems currently do not exist but are crucial for providing a reliable census of the nationwide free-tailed bat populations and processes. Computer vision techniques will be developed to analyze nightly emergence, flight paths, and foraging behaviors of individuals and groups of bats.
2. Computational Modeling.-Design, develop, solve, and validate computational models of the agricultural-insects-bats system across temporal and spatial scales. Processes at lower levels of organization, such as the individual bat and its physiological functions, will be analyzed to solve problems posed at higher ecological levels of organization from the population to the landscape. Local population models for particular caves or bridges will be generalized to a spatially explicit regional model for Texas, and then to a spatially explicit landscape model that describes the nationwide impact of Brazilian free-tailed bats on agricultural ecosystems. Currently, no complete individual or population life-history models exist for free-tailed bats nor, indeed, for any bat species, in spite of the fact bats are ubiquitous throughout the world and are distinguished as the second largest order of mammals.
3. System Integration.-The proposed models will be integrated using both conceptual and spatial hierarchies. Results provided by the sensing technologies will be combined to represent the processes of foraging and migration. The integration of these outcomes as well as molecular tools (such as fecal DNA), entomological and agricultural information, energetics, meteorological and toxicological databases, will provide input parameters and validation data to computational models of bat populations. The models will integrate the interdependencies of dietary factors, energy consumption and allocation, weather patterns, effects of toxicants, etc. on birth and mortality rates and population sizes of bats and their prey.

Broader Impacts Resulting from the Proposed Activity
The importance of natural pest-control services becomes evident often only when they are degraded or eliminated by human activity. The proposed research will provide realistic estimates of the economic impact of Brazilian free-tailed bats. The proposed techniques may generalize to other species and thus have a broad impact in the fields of biology, ecology, ecological economics, and agriculture. The proposed methods of image analysis may apply to other large-scale video tracking applications, for instance, the analysis of group behavior of other bat species, insects, herding mammals (e.g., seals, caribou), colonial seabirds, the analysis of human crowd behavior, data mining of video of human motion, and video surveillance for homeland security. An important impact of the proposed research on society will be the development appropriate policy responses by federal, state, or local authorities based on the fundamentally improved understanding of the underlying biological and economic principles of natural pest control. The proposed effort addresses the goals of the ITR Program in a number of ways. It is multidisciplinary in nature, providing a new bridge between the fields of computational sciences and ecology. This may lead to novel, unanticipated insights and technologies in both fields. The proposed effort will train students in biology and computer science to fully integrate information technology and science. Graduate and undergraduate students from both disciplines will learn to conduct joint field experiments, analyze data, and work with computational models. The projects in computer science that are inspired by questions in biology promise to have a special appeal to women, and we expect that our project will encourage more women to explore the computational aspects of biology.

This project investigates the effects of man's alteration of environments on rabies infections in bats. The research involves the following interrelated components: 1) studies of the population ecology and genetics of two common species of bats in natural and in man-altered habitats; 2) surveillance for rabies exposure and infection in these wild populations; 3) investigation of the effects of immune system stress resulting from habitat change on the ability of bats to resist disease infection; 4) laboratory experiments to connect the effects of stress on the immune system of bats and their susceptibility to rabies under controlled conditions; 5) mathematical modeling to integrate the data from the field studies and laboratory experiments to achieve a predictive analysis of how habitat change and stress affect disease dynamics within wild populations of bats.

Within the last 40 years, bats have become the primary reservoir for human rabies infections in the U.S. These same years have witnessed the emergence of numerous infectious diseases (e.g., AIDS, Ebola, West Nile Virus, hantaviruses) that are major threats to human health. Man's alteration of environments and changes in the relationships between the diseases and the animals they infect are implicated in the emergence of each of these diseases. Beyond providing a better understanding of rabies, this study will address issues common to the ecology of many diseases that infect wildlife and man.

Several species that have been traditionally defined on the basis of morphology recently have been discovered to consist of two or more genetically distinct groups each. These findings raise fundamental questions about how "cryptic" species coexist when an animal's morphology is used to define its ecological niche. Theory predicts that no two species should occupy the same niche at the same time and place. In this study Dr. Thomas Kunz and Susan Murray will investigate the separation that allows coexistence, by comparing morphology, feeding ecology, roosting habitats, and population genetic structure between morphologically cryptic bat species (bicolored leaf-nosed bats) in peninsular Malaysia. The research will help us understand ecological and evolutionary processes that lead to similar morphologies of coexisting species, and why some animal assemblages are more species-rich than others. Recognition of cryptic species may also affect estimates of biodiversity and how conservation priorities are determined.

The broader impacts of this research include new training opportunities for Murray, establishment of new collaborations with Malaysian, Indonesian, and British researchers, and providing research opportunities for Malaysian undergraduates. Educating and training indigenous and local peoples on the ecological importance of bats and how to protect delicate cave ecosystems will be an important part of this project.

Support will enable participation of 24 graduate students at the World Summit on Evolution in the Galapagos, June 9-12, 2005. This conference will be held on Ecuador's Galapagos archipelago, the islands that helped spark Darwin's revolutionary ideas that changed how we view the Earth's biota. Through a series of presentations and discussions, outstanding leaders in evolutionary science will address major questions, including: What is the evidence for the theory of evolution? How has each field and their respective approaches deepened our understanding? And where are the future horizons? Bringing together international experts and students for debate in this supremely special location will help answer these questions and hopefully lead to decisions that will shape the direction of evolutionary science in the foreseeable future.

The Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) is hosting this conference to celebrate the opening of its Galapagos Academic Institute for the Arts and Sciences (GAIAS), and to further its academic mission and the promotion of conservation of the Islands. Discussion and debate is expected to be lively.

Graduate student participation is vital to this World Summit on Evolution, because their inclusion will add further intellectual as well as cultural diversity to the views and opinions expressed throughout the conference. Because the sessions are uniquely focused on facilitated debates rather than lectures, graduate students will be able to participate directly in the conference.

The Summit is one part of a larger program to teach and encourage understanding of evolution in Ecuador and in other Latin American countries. Because evolution is not a topic that is generally included in secondary school curricula, an important impact of the Summit will be to develop a series of programs and events designed to promote the understanding of evolution among high school students and the general public. These events will include talks and discussions, to be held in three of Ecuador's largest cities, and will present science and evolution in an easy-to-understand level during the academic year. It is estimated that this outreach program will attract about 5,000 students and 1,500 from the general public in Ecuador alone, and will potentially reach thousands more via virtual links. Presentations focusing on several evolutionary themes will be made by Ecuadorian scientists and selected international speakers.

The contents of these presentations and from the Summit will be used by faculty from USFQ to prepare a textbook on evolution at the high school level. This book will be published in Spanish for use throughout Latin America. Additionally, USFQ is organizing other academic activities such as a high school essay contest that will focus on evolutionary topics. The momentum generated by this conference will help to further the scientific literacy of Ecuadorian high school students. Students will be exposed to the main concepts of current evolutionary science to gain a better appreciation of the importance of preserving the Galapagos Islands for future generations, the results of which are expected to inspire a new generation of Latin American scientists.

Proposal Number: 0435353
PI: Thomas Little
Institution: Boston University
Title: Semantic Internetworking of Sensor Systems for Efficient In-Network Information Processing

Abstract:

Advances in sensor and computing technologies provide impetus for deploying wireless sensor networks in diverse applications ranging from environmental and habitat monitoring, power systems and manufacturing. Successful realization of such systems hinges on systematic methodologies to address and resolve bottleneck issues. Sensor network operation and lifetime is fundamentally limited by energy, a particular concern in environmental applications that necessitate long-term deployment. The project systematically interfaces new techniques for data networking and distributed information-processing to realize scalability and massive energy efficiencies in sensor network operation. The employed methods include novel semantic routing techniques and in-network localized distributed inferencing algorithms. A challenging ecological application, which is representative of the challenges arising in environmental monitoring, is addressed as proof-of-concept. Successfully completed project will lead to (1) an enabling technique for building systems to monitor and understand our environment and thus provide a framework for evaluating broad policy questions relevant to society; (2) new techniques and theories to advance the viability of large scale sensor networks as an engineering challenge; (3) novel, unanticipated insights and technologies in biology, geography, and engineering, which are bridged by the interdisciplinary effort; (4) scientific tools for scientists, educators, students, and like-minded individuals who might apply the results of the project. The results of the project will be disseminated through scholarly venues, journal, conference and online publications.

A grant has been awarded to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station (TBS) of Boston University under the direction of Dr. Thomas Kunz for partial support to enhance the Station's ability to serve as a base for research and higher education learning in the Amazonian rainforest. TBS is located in the Amazonian rainforest on the Tiputini River in eastern Ecuador, adjacent to the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve. It is a unique field station influenced by its association with the Andes to the west and the expansive lowland rainforest to east.

The primary goal of TBS is to support research and education that will help conserve and manage the Amazon ecosystem. Current facilities at the TBS are inadequate to meet the research and educational goals of the station. Funds will be used to erect a new laboratory building that will significantly increase laboratory space for researchers, install a satellite downlink/uplink for Internet access, construct new housing for long-term researchers, and improve the transportation system for provisioning TBS with supplies and equipment. All of these improvements will significantly bolster the research capabilities of users of the station and will facilitate communication between researchers.

In its nine years of operation, over 200 researchers, including 40 graduate students, have visited or conducted research at TBS. In addition, over 2,000 university students from North America, South America, and Europe have participated in courses taught at the TBS by the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Boston University. TBS provides unique opportunities for scientists and students to engage in ecological, evolutionary, and conservation research in a region with diverse and complex species assemblages, coupled to an environment that is being influenced by both natural and anthropogenic forces.

Central to an understanding of successful pregnancies is determining how the placenta
attaches itself to the uterine wall of the mother. The outer lining of the placenta contains a layer
of cells (trophoblasts), which have the property of being able to invade the uterine lining, thus
establishing the placenta. How the invasion process is initiated and regulated is uncertain. In
this project, the hypothesis that the reproductive hormone leptin stimulates invasiveness of
trophoblast cells will be investigated in trophoblast cells grown on an artificial, protein-coated
membrane. Invasive cells secrete enzymes that degrade the protein coating, and permit the cells
to move through tiny pores in the membrane; the number of cells penetrating the membrane are
counted under a microscope. The ability of leptin to stimulate invasion of trophoblasts from
placentas at early and late gestation will be examined; we predict that leptin will promote
invasion only in trophoblasts from early-stage placentas. The molecular mechanisms by which
leptin stimulates invasiveness will be determined by examining changes in intracellular signaling
molecules and gene expression induced by leptin. Placentas will be studied in species
representing the two most abundant mammalian orders. The mouse placenta does not produce
leptin, but expresses receptors for leptin and is therefore sensitive to leptin actions. The little
brown bat placenta produces and secretes leptin (as does the human placenta), and like the mouse
placenta is a target for leptin. The effects of leptin on mouse and bat placental function will be
compared. Broader impacts of this project include: 1) documentation of the importance of leptin
in establishing the placenta in diverse mammals; 2) understanding the role of leptin as a general
signal for cell migration and invasion (i.e., in other cell types where leptin is known to act and
where cells are invasive); 3) understanding gestational stage-dependent actions of hormones on
trophoblast cells; and 4) education of young scientists-in-training and outreach to include
participation of underrepresented minorities (one postdoctoral fellow, one to two graduate
students and four undergraduates students will be mentored per year on this project).

Characteristics of species can influence their exposure to environmental contaminants which, in turn, can impact their immune function and susceptibility to infectious diseases. This study will examine two temperate bat species, Eptesicus fuscus and Myotis lucifugus, which differ in diet and foraging habitat, and compare them with respect to mercury tissue concentration, stable isotope concentration, immune function, and stress physiology. Comparisons also will be made between sites with different mercury concentrations. Results should contribute to a better understanding of the effects of mercury on mammalian health, and determine whether mercury is an important factor affecting the health and conservation status of bat species. Bats may be particularly useful indicator species for assessing mercury contamination because of their relatively long life spans, high metabolic rates, wide geographic ranges, and trophic status. If mercury causes a decrease in immune function, it may also increase susceptibility to infection by pathogens such as rabies. Broader impacts of this project include training of a doctoral student and a likely increase in understanding of ecological and environmental influences affecting emerging infectious diseases in bats and humans alike.

"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."

The ability to reason about the complexity of living organisms in diverse environments is one of the hallmarks of intelligence. In this project the PI and her interdisciplinary team of investigators will design computer vision algorithms for intelligent tracking of large groups of living individuals in three-dimensional space. She will develop specific systems for tracking groups of microorganisms, bats, birds, and humans. And she will formulate machine learning methods for analyzing group behavior, specifically the conditions for formation and dispersal of groups, and the interactions of individuals within a group. An important innovative aspect of this research is the systematic and comprehensive approach to reasoning about the motion of large groups of living organisms observed in video data, independently of whether they happen to be humans, animals, or cells. Previous efforts in this area have typically focused on studying the behavior of a single type of organism, and on testing theories of behavior based predominately on simulations, without the appropriate analytical tools to automatically explore and quantify the vast number of visual data sets. This project, on the other hand, will base research findings on the analysis of thousands of trajectories of individual group members moving in 3D space. To this end, the PI and her team will collect video data in the field and in public spaces to ensure optimal data capture conditions. They will use these data to develop robust solutions for the problem of matching hundreds of individual bats, birds, or people from frame to frame. They will generate stereoscopic reconstructions of movement trajectories based on multiple calibrated cameras, and use machine learning to model group behavior and mine the trajectory data. Finally, they will compare the findings of their reasoning system against current theories about the formation of groups and the interactions of individuals within a group. A similar, systematic research strategy will be employed to address understanding of the behavior of single cells. The team will design microscope imaging protocols, develop solutions for the segmentation and tracking of individual cells, and use statistical learning techniques to discover patterns and correlations in the behavior of the cells on physiologically relevant substrates.

Broader Impacts: Understanding the processes by which groups of animals and microorganisms behave is crucial to the effective conservation of populations and ecosystems and the management of cellular environments. Project outcomes will advance knowledge across the fields of computer vision, artificial intelligence, behavioral ecology, and biological engineering, and will provide new tools for answering urgent economic and ethical questions, for example about the mortality of birds and bats in wind energy facilities.

White-Nose Syndrome has been linked to unprecedented morbidity and mortality among five of the nine species of bats in the northeastern United States, first observed in six hibernacula in New York State in the winter of 2006-2007, and subsequently reported from at least 33 caves and mines in four states (New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut) in the winter of 2007-2008, with mortality reported as high as 95% at some sites. The hypothesis being tested is that a reduction in the quantity and quality fat deposited by bats during the pre-hibernation period in autumn may compromise successful hibernation, and their ultimate reproductive success. White adipose tissue (WAT) is the primary source of energy that sustains bats (and other hibernators) throughout the winter when they have no access to food. Over-winter survival and subsequent reproductive success requires a sufficient quantity and quality of WAT deposited during the pre-hibernation period, and sufficient fat reserves to sustain deep torpor and periodic arousals throughout the winter, and a final arousal in spring. Because insectivorous bats cannot synthesize polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), deficiencies in dietary PUFAs during the pre-hibernation period in autumn may reduce the duration and depth of torpor during hibernation. Frequent arousals during hibernation may result in premature depletion of WAT before the end of the hibernation period. Moreover, depleted WAT at this time may contribute to a decrease in leptin production (necessary for ovulation and successful reproduction by females), or, in the worst cases, the inability to arouse from torpor or inability to mount an immune response to possible pathogens.

Analyses of body composition (including PUFAs) of bats of little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus) during the pre-hibernation period will be conducted at sites affected by and unaffected by WNS to test three hypotheses that may help reveal or rule out causes of premature deaths or compromise reproductive success in these hibernating bats. Body composition analysis provides the most accurate and reliable estimates of total body water, WAT, and lean dry mass, and analyses of PUFAs in WAT collected from bats during the pre-hibernation fattening period. These data promise to provide valuable insight for testing proposed hypotheses to help explain why hibernating bats are dying prematurely at hibernacula in the northeastern US, and in turn suggest directions for future study to better understand WNS.

The proposed research will facilitate cross-disciplinary research between an ecologist, biochemical ecologist, and an endocrinologist to address an urgent environmental problem: unexpected mortality in hibernating insectivorous bats in the northeastern US. The proposed research will provide new insight into the mechanisms that influence winter survival and reproductive success in bats. Moreover, this research will provide an excellent opportunity to highlight the ecological and economic importance of bats in temperate ecosystems through print media, radio, TV, and web-based Internet blogs.

White-Nose Syndrome is a fungal disease that affects bats hibernating in caves. Since it was first identified in the eastern United States in 2006, the disease has spread from cave to cave across the Northeast, as far south as Tennessee, and as far west as Oklahoma and Ontario. Over a million bats have died from the fungus, called Geomyces destructans or Gd by scientists, which flourishes in the cool conditions of caves. The goal of this research project is to gain a better understanding how the disease is transmitted at local, regional, and continental scales.

The researchers will focus in particular on bat social behavior, such as the size of congregating groups and assortment within groups, which are known to vary both within and between bat species during different seasons. They hypothesize that disease transmission from bat to bat and cave to cave is affected by temporal and spatial variation in how bat social groups are organized. They will collect data to see if transmission increases with colony size and with how often and for how long bats are aroused during hibernation; if cave temperature and humidity affect the growth of the fungus; if the number of different bat species present in a region influences the prevalence of the disease; if some species are more susceptible than others; and if geographic latitude and having more places to hibernate in a given area promotes the development and spread of White-Nose Syndrome in local bat populations.

The researchers will use these data to create a predictive behavior-based model of disease transmission. Bats are significant in North American ecology because they control insects and pollinate plants. Understanding how this devastating disease develops and spreads is critical to protecting bat populations and the ecosystem services they provide. The researchers, who come from multiple disciplines and several universities (Boston University, the University of California-Santa Cruz, Northern Arizona University, and the University of Tennessee), also will train graduate and undergraduate students in the conduct of the research. They will share their results with resource managers and policy makers at state and federal levels, and will participate in Congressional briefings and in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's White-Nose Syndrome National Plan.

Insect-eating bats are thought to provide important ecosystem services and economic benefits in agricultural systems through suppression of insect pests. Few studies, however, have attempted to describe these services and benefits, due to difficulties in identification of insect prey and lack of information on the use of agricultural landscapes by bats. This project integrates these components to describe ecological relationships between insects and bats within pecan orchards in Texas. More specifically, the research will test the hypothesis that bats contribute to the suppression of several nocturnal pests that damage pecan crops. Harnessing cutting-edge techniques, this study will use DNA from bat guano to identify with great accuracy what different species of bats are eating. The research will address fundamental ecological questions, such as the differential use of prey resources between species of bats. For example, we predict that the total number of agricultural pest species detected in bat diets will increase as more bat species are included in the analysis, reflecting variation in diet among bat species.

Demonstrating the ecosystem services provided by bats to landowners may lead to increased adoption of sustainable agriculture practices, reduced costs of pest management, and enhancement of bat habitat on private land. The results of this study will be incorporated into the Texas Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program for pecans and will be distributed to pecan growers in the form of presentations at conferences, informational pamphlets, and in Texas A&M publications (both in print and online). Over the past three years, local pecan growers have been actively engaged in this project and educational workshops about bats and agriculture have been presented in Texas and Massachusetts schools.