The Bergland lab was recently awarded the NSF CAREER award. This award, funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, will further the lab's understanding on how evolution works when the environment changes in time and space.
Their proposed project uses fruit flies living in temperate environments to ask questions on how these populations adapt to environmental variation, does rapid adaptation to variation in time maintain genetic variation in populations, and what are the consequences of winter-driven mortality on seasonal adaptation? This project will heavily feature contributions from citizen scientists as they help collect DNA samples from fruit flies during the Virginian growing season in backyard compost piles and fruit orchards.
Congrats to the Bergland lab!