Collaborative Research: Impacts of Anthropogenic Change on the Ecology of Human Pathogens in a Eutrophying Estuary: The Neuse River Estuary, NC

全球约75%的人口居住在沿海流域，沿海城市化和农业、工业发展速度加快。随着沿海地区的发展，富含营养物和病原体的废水排放加速，这给接收和处理大量陆地径流的河口带来了前所未有的压力。营养负荷增加导致初级生产力增加或富营养化，其症状对沿海资源和生态健康构成重大威胁。这种富营养化导致受影响水体有机质富集。废水排放中的大多数人类病原体是异养的，可能在这些富含有机物的条件下茁壮成长。因此，在营养负荷下，病原体种群可能会增加，导致富营养化，人类接触和健康影响也会增加。在这个项目中，北卡罗来纳大学教堂分校和北卡罗来纳大学夏洛特分校的研究人员将重点了解Neuse River河口的营养负荷、与传染病有关的微生物的生长和命运以及随后对人类健康的影响之间的关系。长期目标是建立一个有助于估计流域保护政策对生态和人类健康影响的计算模型。虽然这项研究并非严格侧重于人类健康风险，但它将使用从人类健康风险评估中得出的概念框架以及在该框架下收集的数据，以确保以最佳方式减少目前对上述联系的理解中的不确定性，将重点放在更基础的科学研究上。研究将侧重于下列微生物：(i)对人类健康具有重大意义；（ii）卫生专业人员的研究专题；（iii）命运受河口环境条件支配的更一般一类传染病病原的代表。一个由杰出科学家组成的顾问委员会将从涉及的学科范围指导整个项目。智力优势：这项研究将采用跨学科的方法，将熟悉河口动力学、病原体生态学和人类健康风险的研究人员聚集在一起。结果将是参与机构在传染病生态学方面的一个新的研究项目。建模框架将结合实验和现场信息来检查潜在的机制、环境控制和营养相互作用，在一个具有良好特征的河口经历富营养化的晚期症状。结果将加强实验人员和建模人员之间的互动，确保这两个小组作为一个单一的研究单位发挥作用。研究地点，纽斯河河口（NRE），是一个重要的渔业和娱乐资源，也是北卡罗来纳州帕姆利科湾的主要支流，帕姆利科湾是美国第二大河口综合体，也是东海岸最重要的渔业苗区。该系统的研究将为研究其他河口系统提供一个概念和计算框架，在这些系统中，营养物质/有机物浓度对一系列颗粒相关和自由悬浮的人类细菌病原体的多样性、生长、生存和增殖的影响可能会被检查。更广泛的影响：该研究项目将促进国家-大学-工业合作的水质监测和评估基础设施，培养协同的研究氛围。它还将对受人类发展影响的具有代表性和可处理的浅河口的人类病原体动力学的水文，营养和生态控制发展一种新的，基本的过程水平的理解，并直接适用于这些系统中的政策分析。该项目将成为未来发展的基石。在现有的现场为高级本科生提供体验式学习计划，为科学本科生在基础科学和应用科学领域的职业生涯做好准备。研究生在硕士和博士水平将参与密集的分子和。经典海洋学训练是这个项目的一部分。高中学生、教育工作者和广大公众将积极参与实地体验研讨会，使用流媒体视频和交互式网络活动作为该项目的一部分。

ABSTRACTOCE 0327056 / OCE-0326811Approximately 75% of people live in coastal watersheds, with coastal urbanization and agricultural and industrial development increasing at rapid rates. Accelerating nutrient- and pathogen-enriched wastewater discharge accompanying coastal development is putting unprecedented pressure on estuaries that receive and process the bulk of land-based runoff. Enhanced nutrient loading has led to increased primary productivity or eutrophication, the symptoms of which pose a significant threat to coastal resources and ecological health. This eutrophication leads to organic matter enrichment of affected waters. Most human pathogens in wastewater discharges are heterotrophs and may thrive under these enriched organic matter conditions. As a result, pathogen populations may increase under nutrient loading leading to eutrophication, as will human exposures and health effects.In this project, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel and University of North Carolina at Charlotte will focus on understanding the relationships between nutrient loading in the Neuse River Estuary, growth and fate of microorganisms linked to infectious disease, and subsequent impacts on human health. The long-term goal is the creation of a computational model useful in estimating the effect of watershed protection policies on ecological and human health. While the research is not strictly focused on human health risk, it will use a conceptual framework derived from human health risk assessment, and data collected under that framework, to focus on more fundamental scientific research in a way that ensures optimal reduction of uncertainties in current understanding of the links described above. The research will focus on microorganisms that are (i) of great significance to human health, (ii) the subject of research expertise by the PIs, and (iii) representative of the more general class of infectious disease agents whose fate is governed by environmental conditions in estuaries. An Advisory Board of distinguished scientists will guide the entire project from the range of disciplines involved. Intellectual Merit: This research will employ an interdisciplinary approach by bringing together investigators familiar with estuarine dynamics, pathogen ecology, and human health risk. The result will be a new research program in the Ecology of Infectious Disease at the participating institutions. A modeling framework will combine experimental and field information to examine underlying mechanisms, environmental controls, and trophic interactions in a well-characterized estuary experiencing advanced symptoms of eutrophication. The result will be enhanced interactions between experimentalists and modelers, ensuring that the two groups function as a single research unit. The research site, the Neuse River Estuary (NRE), is an important fisheries and recreational resource and key tributary of North Carolina's Pamlico Sound, the Nation's 2nd largest estuarine complex and the East Coast's most important fisheries nursery. Study of this system will provide a conceptual and computational framework for studying other estuarine systems in which the impacts of nutrient/organic matter concentrations on the diversity, growth, survival, and proliferation of a range of particle-associated and freely suspended bacterial human pathogens might be examined.Broader Impacts: This research project will facilitate a collaborative State-University-Industry water quality monitoring and assessment infrastructure, fostering a synergistic research atmosphere. It will also develop a novel, fundamental process-level understanding of the hydrologic, nutritional and ecological controls of human pathogen dynamics in a representative and tractable shallow estuary impacted by human development, with direct applicability to policy analyses in such systems. The project will serve as a keystone for an. experiential learning program for advanced undergraduates at an existing field site, preparing science undergraduates for careers at the interface of fundamental and applied science. Graduate students at both the MSc and PhD levels will be involved in intensive molecular and. Classical oceanographic training as part of this project. High school students, educators, and the public at large will actively participate in field experience seminars, using streaming video and interactive web-based activities as part of this project.