Organismal Response to Climate Change | 22 513

Opportunity Information: Apply for 22 513

The National Science Foundation (NSF) grant opportunity "Organismal Response to Climate Change" (ORCC; Funding Opportunity Number 22-513) supports research aimed at explaining, in a mechanistic and predictive way, how living organisms respond to rapidly changing climate conditions. The program is grounded in the idea that climate change is already reshaping ecosystems across all biomes and that organismal responses will strongly influence where species can survive, how communities are assembled, how crops and domesticated animals perform, and how pathogens spread and intensify. Because these biological shifts directly affect food security, ecosystem services, and the broader bioeconomy, NSF is looking for research that can move beyond documenting patterns and instead clarify the underlying biological mechanisms that drive those patterns.

A central goal of the solicitation is to push studies of climate impacts toward deeper integration between "how organisms work" and eco-evolutionary outcomes. ORCC proposals are expected to connect organismal mechanisms such as genomics, physiology, structure, development, neural systems, and behavior to larger-scale ecological and evolutionary consequences, including population persistence, species range shifts, community interactions, and evolutionary change across generations. The program emphasizes that many prior climate change studies have treated mechanisms and eco-evolutionary dynamics separately; ORCC is meant to bridge that gap by funding projects that explicitly unite these perspectives in a single, cohesive research framework.

NSF highlights several example topics that fit well within ORCC, while leaving room for other creative ideas that align with the program's purpose. Illustrative areas include integrating physiology and genomics into the next generation of species distribution models, developing a mechanistic understanding of plasticity (how organisms adjust traits in response to environmental change), applying functional genomics to identify how climate-related stressors alter gene function and regulation, and investigating how biological interactions (such as competition, predation, mutualism, host-pathogen relationships, or symbioses) shape organismal responses to climate change. Another strong theme is improving prediction: ORCC is interested not only in describing responses, but also in increasing our ability to forecast how organisms will respond under future climate scenarios and what those responses will mean across biological scales, from individual performance and fitness to populations, communities, and ecosystems over space and time.

The solicitation also aligns with NSF's broader interest in convergence and cross-disciplinary research. Competitive proposals are expected to bring together expertise and methods from multiple fields to examine the mechanisms behind adaptive responses (those that improve survival or reproduction under new conditions) and maladaptive responses (those that reduce performance or increase vulnerability). A key expectation is that projects will link these mechanisms to fitness consequences in changing or novel climates and will examine the genetic and evolutionary processes through which relevant traits arise, persist, and are transmitted across generations. NSF also encourages applicants to think about translation in a scientific and management sense: taking mechanistic findings and using them to improve predictions and inform strategies to manage or mitigate climate impacts across different spatial and temporal scales and levels of biological organization.

Just as important as what ORCC funds is what it does not fund. Proposals are considered inappropriate for this solicitation if they do not genuinely bridge disciplinary components, if they lack a clear and specific focus on organismal responses to climate change, or if they stop at the level of the individual without connecting mechanistic insights to eco-evolutionary consequences at higher levels (for example, population dynamics, species distributions, or community outcomes). NSF also notes that projects that could be submitted to the usual ("core") or other special programs within the relevant NSF divisions (such as Integrative Organismal Systems or Environmental Biology) are not the intended target for ORCC. Applicants who are unsure about fit are encouraged to contact a relevant program officer before submitting.

Administratively, ORCC is an NSF discretionary grant opportunity in the Science and Technology and other Research and Development category (CFDA 47.074). Eligibility is listed as unrestricted (open to any type of entity, subject to any additional eligibility language in the full notice). NSF anticipated roughly 10 awards for this competition cycle, and the published award ceiling is listed as 0, which typically indicates that budgets are not capped by a single stated maximum in the summary and that applicants should rely on the full solicitation guidance and program expectations when developing budgets and scope. The opportunity was created on October 19, 2021, with an original closing date of March 1, 2022.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Organismal Response to Climate Change" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.074.
• This funding opportunity was created on Oct 19, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 01, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 10 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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