Collaborative Research: Ecological Interactions between Sudden Oak Death and Lyme Disease in California

合作研究：加利福尼亚州橡树猝死与莱姆病之间的生态相互作用

• 批准号: 0525674
• 负责人: Richard Ostfeld
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-10-01 至 2011-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0525674&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Ecological; Interactions; between

A devastating plant pathogen, Phytophthora ramorum, which causes the disease Sudden Oak Death (SOD), is sweeping through oak woodlands of California. This new disease has the potential to profoundly affect local vertebrate populations. Vertebrate populations (e.g., mice, squirrels, lizards), in turn, strongly influence risk of human exposure to Lyme disease (LD) via their impacts on numbers and infection of tick vectors. This research will integrate field, laboratory, and modeling efforts. First, a combination of field and lab studies will furnish information on individual host species' contributions to LD risk in California. Second, the abundance of specific groups of vertebrates will be compared in sites of high versus low SOD impact. Third, responses by specific hosts to SOD will be used to construct models to predict how SOD will change risk of human exposure to LD. Fourth, specific hypotheses arising from these models will be tested by assessing tick abundance and infection prevalence in areas of high and low SOD impact.Our research embeds the ecology of the most prevalent vector-borne disease of humans in the United States (LD) within the ecology of a devastating infectious disease of plants (SOD), and specifically asks how these two disease systems interact. The outbreak of SOD presents a novel opportunity to determine how a human infectious disease is impacted by an exotic forest pathogen. Such research provides a model for current epidemics of plant pathogens and pests (e.g., beech bark disease, hemlock woolly adelgid, gypsy moth) that in all likelihood will dramatically change the composition of North American forests, with potentially strong consequences for human health.

引起橡树猝死病（SOD）的一种毁灭性的植物病原体——黑疫霉（Phytophthora ramorum）正在横扫加州的橡树林地。这种新疾病有可能对当地脊椎动物种群产生深远影响。反过来，脊椎动物种群（如老鼠、松鼠、蜥蜴）通过影响蜱虫媒介的数量和感染，对人类接触莱姆病（LD）的风险产生强烈影响。这项研究将整合现场、实验室和建模工作。首先，实地和实验室研究的结合将提供有关单个寄主物种对加州LD风险的贡献的信息。其次，将比较高与低SOD影响位点的特定脊椎动物群的丰度。第三，特定宿主对SOD的反应将用于构建模型，以预测SOD如何改变人类暴露于LD的风险。第四，通过评估高和低SOD影响地区的蜱虫丰度和感染流行程度，将对这些模型产生的特定假设进行检验。我们的研究将美国最流行的人类病媒传播疾病（LD）的生态学嵌入到一种毁灭性的植物传染病（SOD）的生态学中，并具体询问这两种疾病系统如何相互作用。SOD的爆发提供了一个新的机会来确定人类传染病是如何受到外来森林病原体的影响的。这种研究为目前流行的植物病原体和害虫（如山毛榉树皮病、铁杉毛蚜、舞毒蛾）提供了一个模型，这些疾病极有可能极大地改变北美森林的构成，对人类健康可能产生严重后果。