Collaborative Research: Community Ecology as a Framework for Understanding Disease Dynamics

尽管几乎在每个社区都发现了寄生虫，但社区与疾病生态之间的关系仍然知之甚少。 我们的目标是确定物种间的相互作用和共同的环境压力影响疾病的性质和社区动态的机制。 我们的主要宿主是两栖动物，这是一组全球保护问题，受到最近出现的传染病的影响。 病灶寄生虫是吸虫（扁形虫）Ribeiroia ondattera和Echinostoma trivolvis。 它们从蜗牛传播到两栖动物，并分别引起与肢体畸形和肾损伤相关的死亡。 我们的假设是，吸虫传播，相关的死亡率，两栖动物健身将取决于社区组成和非生物压力。 我们将进行调查，以确定两栖吸虫感染与湿地及其周围景观的生物和非生物特征之间的关系。 我们将使用围隔群落来研究竞争和捕食（生物压力）和农药以及与气候变化相关的条件（非生物压力）的独立和综合影响如何影响两栖动物的适应性和疾病特性。 此外，我们将阐明两栖动物的免疫反应和生物和非生物的压力和感染风险之间的关系进行免疫测定两栖动物从我们的每个实验。 最后，我们将制定吸虫在人类改变的环境中传播的预测数学模型。 该项目代表了社区生态学，免疫学和流行病学整合的开创性努力，这将提高我们预测未来媒介传播疾病爆发的能力，通过阐明宿主-寄生虫相互作用的一般原则。

Despite parasites being found in nearly every community, the relationship between community and disease ecology remains poorly understood. Our goal is to determine the mechanisms by which species interactions and common environmental stressors influence disease properties and community dynamics. Our focal hosts are amphibians, a group of global conservation concern that has been impacted by the recent emergence of infectious diseases. The focal parasites are the trematodes (flatworms) Ribeiroia ondatrae and Echinostoma trivolvis. They are transmitted from snails to amphibians and induce mortality associated with limb deformities and kidney damage, respectively. Our hypothesis is that trematode transmission, associated mortality, and amphibian fitness will depend upon community composition and abiotic stressors. We will conduct surveys to identify relationships among amphibian trematode infections and biotic and abiotic characteristics of wetlands and their surrounding landscape. We will use mesocosm communities to examine how the independent and combined effects of competition and predation (biotic stressors) and pesticides and conditions associated with climate change (abiotic stressors) influence amphibian fitness and disease properties. Additionally, we will elucidate the relationships among amphibian immune responses and biotic and abiotic stressors and infection risk by conducting immunological assays on amphibians from each of our experiments. Finally, we will formulate predictive mathematical models for the spread of trematodes in human-altered environments. This project represents a pioneering effort in the integration of community ecology, immunology, and epidemiology that will improve our ability to forecast future vector-borne disease outbreaks by shedding light on general principles governing host-parasite interactions.