SGER: Infectious Disease Ecology and Threatened Species: Impacts of West Nile Virus on Spotted Owl Populations

SGER：传染病生态学和受威胁物种：西尼罗河病毒对斑点猫头鹰种群的影响

• 批准号: 0527359
• 负责人: Alan Franklin
• 金额: $ 3.03万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-05-01 至 2006-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0527359&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Infectious; Disease; Ecology; Threatened

West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that was first introduced on the east coast of North America in 1999 and can cause serious disease in humans and wildlife, especially birds. By 2003, WNV had spread across North America and first appeared in southern California and by fall 2004 had spread into northern California. The arrival of WNV in northern California could have profound impacts on the extant bird communities, which are naive to the effects of WNV. Although the disease is known to cause mortality in avian species, the potential impacts of WNV on avian populations are largely unknown. However, two recent studies on wild populations of sage grouse and American crows recorded 28% and 72% declines, respectively, in annual survival that were directly attributable to WNV. There is also evidence that owls may be particularly susceptible to WNV from both direct transmission by mosquitoes and indirect transmission from infected prey. Current long-term research on the population dynamics of two subspecies of spotted owls (Strix occidentalis) on 4 study areas in northern California offers a unique opportunity to provide insights on how the introduction of WNV affects avian population dynamics. These long-term studies on spotted owls have collected data on survival, fecundity, recruitment, and rates of population change from marked individuals for the past 10 to 20 years, which provides baseline values of population parameters prior to the introduction of WNV. Using mark-recapture estimators with data from the ongoing spotted owl studies, this research project will differentially examine the ecology of WNV and the effects of this emerging disease on population parameters and rates of population change in spotted owl populations. In this proposal, we are requesting funds to examine the effects of WNV on one of these study populations in 2005, a year with an impending outbreak of WNV. The overall questions to be addressed in this proposal are: 1) what is the prevalence of WNV infection in areas inhabited by northern spotted owls?, 2) what effect does WNV have on spotted owl demographic rates?, and 3) what is the spatial and temporal distribution of direct and indirect sources of infection of WNV in owl territories? We will address these questions by collecting data on mosquito, small mammal, and spotted owl populations. The research will be carried out by a collaborative team of 8 scientists, including 2 wildlife population ecologists conducting spotted owl research, a mosquito ecologist, 3 wildlife disease ecologists with expertise in WNV, a virologist, and a biometrician familiar with modeling wildlife disease dynamics. In addition, 2 undergraduate students will be included in our research program and, thus, provide training for students in the growing field of wildlife disease ecology. In the long-term, we believe this system has promise for predicting the effects of WNV and other introduced pathogens on wild avian populations. We also believe our research can provide insights into the potential impacts of emerging diseases on naive fauna, and further understanding of the dynamics of wildlifediseasesystems.

西尼罗河病毒（WNV）是一种蚊媒黄病毒，于1999年首次引入北美东海岸，可导致人类和野生动物，特别是鸟类严重疾病。到2003年，西尼罗河病毒已经蔓延到整个北美，首先出现在加州南部，到2004年秋季已经蔓延到加州北方。西尼罗河病毒在北方加州的到来可能会对现存的鸟类群落产生深远的影响，这些鸟类群落对西尼罗河病毒的影响还很幼稚。虽然已知该病会导致鸟类死亡，但西尼罗河病毒对鸟类种群的潜在影响在很大程度上是未知的。 然而，最近的两项关于鼠尾草松鸡和美国乌鸦野生种群的研究记录了直接归因于西尼罗河病毒的年生存率分别下降了28%和72%。还有证据表明，猫头鹰可能特别容易受到蚊子直接传播和受感染猎物间接传播的西尼罗河病毒的影响。目前的长期研究的种群动态的两个亚种的斑点猫头鹰（Strix oceanentalis）在北方加州的4个研究领域提供了一个独特的机会，提供见解如何引进西尼罗河病毒影响鸟类种群动态。这些对斑点猫头鹰的长期研究收集了过去10至20年来标记个体的生存、繁殖力、招募和种群变化率的数据，这些数据提供了引入西尼罗河病毒之前种群参数的基线值。使用标记-再捕获估计与正在进行的斑点猫头鹰研究的数据，本研究项目将差异化地研究西尼罗河病毒的生态学以及这种新出现的疾病对斑点猫头鹰种群的种群参数和种群变化率的影响。在这项提案中，我们要求提供资金，以检查2005年西尼罗河病毒对其中一个研究人群的影响，这一年西尼罗河病毒即将爆发。本提案中要解决的总体问题是：1）在北方斑点猫头鹰居住的地区，西尼罗河病毒感染的流行率是多少？2)西尼罗河病毒对斑点猫头鹰的人口统计率有什么影响？3）西尼罗河病毒直接和间接感染源在猫头鹰领地的时空分布情况如何？我们将通过收集蚊子、小型哺乳动物和斑点猫头鹰种群的数据来解决这些问题。该研究将由8名科学家组成的合作团队进行，其中包括2名进行斑点猫头鹰研究的野生动物种群生态学家，一名蚊子生态学家，3名具有WNV专业知识的野生动物疾病生态学家，一名病毒学家和一名熟悉野生动物疾病动态建模的生物统计学家。此外，2名本科生将被纳入我们的研究计划，从而为学生提供野生动物疾病生态学领域的培训。从长远来看，我们相信这个系统有希望预测西尼罗河病毒和其他引入的病原体对野生鸟类种群的影响。我们还相信，我们的研究可以提供新出现的疾病对幼稚动物的潜在影响的见解，并进一步了解野生动物疾病系统的动态。