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The Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) supports fundamental research on populations, species, communities, and ecosystems. Scientific emphases range across many evolutionary and ecological patterns and processes at all spatial and temporal scales. Areas of research include biodiversity, phylogenetic systematics, molecular evolution, life history evolution, natural selection, ecology, biogeography, ecosystem structure, function and services, conservation biology, global change, and biogeochemical cycles. Research on organismal origins, functions, relationships, interactions, and evolutionary history may incorporate field, laboratory, or collection-based approaches; observational or manipulative experiments; synthesis activities; as well as theoretical approaches involving analytical, statistical, or computational modeling.

The new National Ocean Policy calls for actions to improve understanding of and capacity to respond to ocean acidification, recognizing the potential adverse impacts of an acidifying sea upon marine ecosystems. The effects of ocean acidification could significantly affect strategies for developing practices towards the sustainability of ocean resources. Basic research concerning the nature, extent and impact of ocean acidification on oceanic environments in the past, present and future is required. Research challenges include: Understanding the geochemistry and biogeochemistry of ocean acidification; Understanding how ocean acidification interacts with biological, chemical and physical processes at the organismal level, and how such interactions impact the structure and function of ecosystems, e.g. through life histories, adaptive evolution, food webs, biogeochemical cycling, and interactions with other changes in the ocean (e.g., temperature, stratification, circulation patterns); and Understanding how the earth system history informs our understanding of the effects of ocean acidification on the present day and future ocean. The Ocean Acidification program is in its fifth and anticipated last year of competition. We expect this to be the last solicitation specifically targeting Ocean Acidification.

The Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) supports fundamental research on populations, species, communities, and ecosystems. Scientific emphases range across many evolutionary and ecological patterns and processes at all spatial and temporal scales. Areas of research include biodiversity, phylogenetic systematics, molecular evolution, life history evolution, natural selection, ecology, biogeography, ecosystem structure, function and services, conservation biology, global change, and biogeochemical cycles. Research on organismal origins, functions, relationships, interactions, and evolutionary history may incorporate field, laboratory, or collection-based approaches; observational or manipulative experiments; synthesis activities; as well as theoretical approaches involving analytical, statistical, or computational modeling.

The Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) supports fundamental research on populations, species, communities, and ecosystems. Scientific emphases range across many evolutionary and ecological patterns and processes at all spatial and temporal scales. Areas of research include biodiversity, phylogenetic systematics, molecular evolution, life history evolution, natural selection, ecology, biogeography, ecosystem structure, function and services, conservation biology, global change, and biogeochemical cycles. Research on organismal origins, functions, relationships, interactions, and evolutionary history may incorporate field, laboratory, or collection-based approaches; observational or manipulative experiments; synthesis activities; as well as theoretical approaches involving analytical, statistical, or computational modeling.

Comprehensive understanding of life and how and why it changes over time depends on knowledge of the phylogeny (evolutionary relationships) of living and extinct organisms. The goals of the Genealogy of Life (GoLife) program are to resolve the phylogenetic history of all life's diverse forms and to integrate this genealogical architecture with underlying organismal and environmental data.

The Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) Program supports the generation of extended time series of data to address important questions in evolutionary biology, ecology, and ecosystem science. Research areas include, but are not limited to, the effects of natural selection or other evolutionary processes on populations, communities, or ecosystems; the effects of interspecific interactions that vary over time and space; population or community dynamics for organisms that have extended life spans and long turnover times; feedbacks between ecological and evolutionary processes; pools of materials such as nutrients in soils that turn over at intermediate to longer time scales; and external forcing functions such as climatic cycles that operate over long return intervals. The Program intends to support decadal projects. Funding for an initial, 5-year period requires submission of a preliminary proposal and, if invited, submission of a full proposal that includes a 15-page project description. Proposals for the second five years of support (renewal proposals) are limited to an eight-page project description and do not require a preliminary proposal. Continuation of an LTREB project beyond an initial ten year award will require submission of a new preliminary proposal that presents a new decadal research plan.?? Successful LTREB proposals address three essential components: A Decadal Research Plan that clearly articulates important questions that cannot be addressed with data that have already been collected, but could be answered if ten additional years of data were collected. This plan is not a research timeline or management plan. It is a concise justification for ten additional years of support in order to advance understanding of key concepts, questions, or theories in environmental biology.Core Data: LTREB proposals require that the author has studied a particular phenomenon or process for at least six years up to the present or for long enough to gene

The Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB) supports quantitative, mechanistic, predictive, and theory-driven fundamental research designed to promote understanding of complex living systems at the molecular, subcellular, and cellular levels. While recognizing the need for thorough and accurate descriptions of biological complexes and pathways, the priority of the Division is to support work that advances the field by capturing the predictive power of mechanistic, quantitative, and evolutionary approaches. Two funding tracks will be available. Core Program Track proposals are solicited to support research relevant to the four MCB core clusters: o Cellular Dynamics and Function o Genetic Mechanisms o Molecular Biophysics o Systems and Synthetic Biology Rules of Life Track proposals that integrate across the scales in biological sciences are solicited to support research that spans from the molecular and cellular levels normally funded by MCB to organismal and ecosystem scales typically funded by other divisions in the Biological Sciences. This track provides new opportunities to advance our understanding of the Rules of Life by new mechanisms for review and funding of proposals that would not ordinarily fit well within one division in the Biological Sciences Directorate.

Collections in Support of Biological Research (CSBR) provides for enhancements that secure and improve existing research collections, improve the accessibility of collection-related data, develop capacity for curation and collection management, and to transfer ownership of collections that are significant to the NSF BIO-funded research community. Requests should demonstrate a clear and urgent need to secure or improve the collection, and the proposed activities should address that need. Types of biological collections that are supported include established living stock/culture collections, established natural history voucher collections, and jointly-curated ancillary collections such as preserved tissues and libraries of genetic and genomic materials. Biological research collections support essential research activities in the biological sciences. Collections are used to document biodiversity, identify species, understand organismal systems, recognize environmental shifts, explore alternate energy sources, understand evolutionary patterns, and improve agricultural, biomedical, and manufacturing applications. Natural history collections contain records of life on earth that are unique and irreplaceable, including specimens of extinct species and temporal information on changes in the ranges of native and introduced species. Many collections also house voucher-linked ancillary research materials (including DNA and frozen tissue samples, digital images, audio and video files). Living collections play a key role in the advancement and preservation of biological knowledge by providing well-characterized and documented experimental organisms to researchers at modest cost.

The Biological Anthropology Program supports multifaceted research to advance scientific knowledge of human biology and ecology, including understanding of our evolutionary history and mechanisms that have shaped human and nonhuman primate biological diversity. Supported research focuses on living and fossil forms of both human and nonhuman primates, addressing time scales ranging from the short-term to evolutionary, encompassing multiple levels of analysis (e.g., molecular, organismal, population, ecosystem), conducted in field, laboratory, captive, and computationalresearch environments, and often incorporating interactions between human biology and culture.

Areas of inquiry that promote understanding of the evolution, biology, and adaptability of our diverse species include, but are not limited to:genetic/epigenetic/genomic variation and relationship to phenotype;ecology and socioecology; functional anatomy and skeletal biology; andpaleoanthropology and primate paleontology. Multidisciplinary research that integrates biological anthropology with related anthropological fields, such as archaeology, cultural anthropology, and forensic anthropology, also may receive support through the Program. The Program contributes to the integration of education and basic research through support of dissertation projects conducted by doctoral students enrolled in U.S. universities. This solicitation specifically addresses the preparation and evaluation of proposals for such Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) Grants. Dissertation research projects in all of the subareas of biological anthropology are eligible for support through these grants. These awards are intended to enhance and improve the conduct of dissertation research by doctoral students who are pursuing research in biological anthropology that enhances basic scientific knowledge.

The purpose of the NSF-Simons Research Centers for Mathematics of Complex Biological Systems (MathBioSys) is to enable innovative collaborative research at the intersection of mathematics and molecular, cellular and organismal biology, to establish new connections between these two disciplines, and to promote interdisciplinary education and workforce training. The National Science Foundation Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and for Biological Sciences (BIO) and the Simons Foundation Division of Mathematics and the Physical Sciences (MPS) and Division of Life Sciences shall jointly sponsor up to three new research centers to facilitate collaborations among groups of mathematicians, statisticians, and biologists.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Geosciences (GEO), the Divisions of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) and Environmental Biology (DEB), in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Directorate Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE/CNS), and the Division of Chemistry (CHE) in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, in collaboration with the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) encourage convergent research that transforms existing capabilities in understanding dynamic soil processes, including soil formation, through advances in sensor systems and modeling. The Signals in the Soil (SitS) program fosters collaboration among the two partner agencies and the researchers they support by combining resources and funding for the most innovative and high-impact projects that address their respective missions. To make transformative advances in our understanding of soils, multiple disciplines must converge to produce environmentally-benign novel sensing systems with multiple modalities that can adapt to different environments and collect and transmit data for a wide range of biological, chemical, and physical parameters. Effective integration of sensor data will be key for achieving a better understanding of signaling interactions among plants, animals, microbes, the soil matrix, and aqueous and gaseous components. New sensor networks have the potential to inform models in novel ways, to radically change how data is obtained from various natural and managed (both urban and rural) ecosystems, and to better inform the communities that directly rely on soils for sustenance and livelihood.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Geosciences (GEO), the Divisions of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) and Environmental Biology (DEB), in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Directorate Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE/CNS), and the Division of Chemistry (CHE) in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, in collaboration with the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) encourage convergent research that transforms existing capabilities in understanding dynamic soil processes, including soil formation, through advances in sensor systems and modeling. The Signals in the Soil (SitS) program fosters collaboration among the two partner agencies and the researchers they support by combining resources and funding for the most innovative and high-impact projects that address their respective missions. To make transformative advances in our understanding of soils, multiple disciplines must converge to produce environmentally-benign novel sensing systems with multiple modalities that can adapt to different environments and collect and transmit data for a wide range of biological, chemical, and physical parameters. Effective integration of sensor data will be key for achieving a better understanding of signaling interactions among plants, animals, microbes, the soil matrix, and aqueous and gaseous components. New sensor networks have the potential to inform models in novel ways, to radically change how data is obtained from various natural and managed (both urban and rural) ecosystems, and to better inform the communities that directly rely on soils for sustenance and livelihood.

The purpose of the NSF-Simons Research Centers for Mathematics of Complex Biological Systems (MathBioSys) is to enable innovative collaborative research at the intersection of mathematics and molecular, cellular and organismal biology, to establish new connections between these two disciplines, and to promote interdisciplinary education and workforce training. The National Science Foundation Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and for Biological Sciences (BIO) and the Simons Foundation Division of Mathematics and the Physical Sciences (MPS) and Division of Life Sciences shall jointly sponsor up to three new research centers to facilitate collaborations among groups of mathematicians, statisticians, and biologists.

The purpose of the NSF-Simons Research Centers for Mathematics of Complex Biological Systems (MathBioSys) is to enable innovative collaborative research at the intersection of mathematics and molecular, cellular and organismal biology, to establish new connections between these two disciplines, and to promote interdisciplinary education and workforce training. The National Science Foundation Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and for Biological Sciences (BIO) and the Simons Foundation Division of Mathematics and the Physical Sciences (MPS) and Division of Life Sciences shall jointly sponsor up to three new research centers to facilitate collaborations among groups of mathematicians, statisticians, and biologists.

Biology has transformed science over the last century through discoveries that cross subdisciplines from the molecular to the organismal to the ecosystem level. While making great progress, biology has also slowly fragmented into subdisciplines, creating a dynamic tension between unifying principles and increasingly reductionist pursuits. The aim of this solicitation is to bring researchers together around the common goal of understanding how the processes that sustain life and enable biological innovation operate and interact within and across different scales of organization, from molecules to cells, tissues to organisms, species, ecosystems, biomes and the entire Earth. The Biology Integration Institutes (BII) program supports collaborative teams of researchers investigating questions that span multiple disciplines within and beyond biology.