LTREB: Acorn Pulses and the Dynamics of Rodents, Ticks, and Lyme-Disease in Oak Forests

生态系统通常包括许多物种，它们在复杂的连接网络中相互作用。我们试图确定控制莱姆病对人类风险动态的关键生态联系。先前对橡树林的观察和实验研究表明，人类接触携带莱姆病蜱的风险可以根据橡子产量提前两年预测。橡子是野生动物的优质食物，橡树的橡子产量逐年变化很大。秋天大量的橡实提高了白足鼠的存活率、繁殖能力和种群增长，导致了接下来的春夏两季的高鼠密度。新孵化的蜱虫幼虫从老鼠身上比从其他宿主身上更成功地进食，更有效地感染莱姆病细菌。因此，我们预测，小鼠的丰度越高，能够将疾病传播给人类的受感染蜱的预期丰度就越大。因为老鼠也是在地面筑巢的鸣鸟的蛋的贪婪的捕食者，这些啮齿动物似乎有能力调节物种的数量大小，如鹪鹩和画眉鸟。我们将在未来五年检验这些期望。这个项目的成果被用于生态学和哺乳动物学的教科书和公共教育（地方和区域的介绍和报纸/杂志文章）。拟议的研究具有很强的实际意义，因为它将有助于预测疾病高风险的时间和地点。因此，它促进了生态对人类福利的实现和感知效用。

Ecological systems typically include many species that interact in complex networks of connections. We seek to determine the key ecological connections that govern the dynamics of Lyme disease risk to humans. Prior observational and experimental studies in oak forests suggest that risk of human exposure to Lyme-disease bearing ticks may be predictable almost two years in advance based on acorn production. Production of acorns - a high quality food for wildlife - by oaks varies dramatically among years. High abundance of acorns in the fall enhances survivorship, reproduction, and population growth of white-footed mice, resulting in high mouse density the following spring and summer. Newly hatched larval ticks feed more successfully, and acquire the Lyme disease bacterium more efficiently, from mice than from other hosts. Therefore, we predict that the higher the abundance of mice, the greater the expected abundance of infected ticks capable of transmitting disease to humans. Because mice are also voracious predators on eggs of ground-nesting songbirds, these rodents appear capable of regulating population size of species such as Veeries and Wood Thrush. We will test these expectations over the next five years.Results of this project are used in Ecology and Mammalogy textbooks and for public education (local and regional presentations and newspaper/magazine articles). The proposed research has strong practical implications because it will facilitate the prediction of times and places of high disease risk. As such, it promotes both the realized and perceived utility of ecology for human welfare.