Collaborative Research: Linkage of Bacterial Pathogens to Human infectious Disease in an Estuary Subjected to Extreme Climatic Events

在该项目中，北卡罗来纳州大学（查佩尔山和夏洛特）两个校区的研究人员将继续他们的研究，重点是表征，量化和建模之间的联系水媒病原体，极端气候事件，对营养物/沉积物输送和浮游植物水华的影响，以及受气候影响的纽斯河口（NRE）传染病的爆发。 在NSF之前和当前的支持下，该团队利用跨学科方法来研究富营养化与病原体命运和运输之间的潜在联系，包括对病原体的再动员和颗粒附着的研究，以及基于正常气候条件下的数据对病原体和人类健康进行建模。 迄今为止的工作已经证明了极端气候（风暴）事件对上述过程的巨大影响。因此，有了这笔更新的资金，研究小组将增加对这些事件的关注（风暴和干旱），在过去十年中急剧增加，并将测试一个双管齐下的假设，涉及增长，运输，生存，以及在这个关键的河口系统中，将本地（本地）和外来（来自含有粪便污染的径流）异养病原体引入复杂的生物和物理过程。研究将评估流程级（即，气候破坏、颗粒附着、河口迁移、病原体向沿海社区传播）之间的联系，这些联系在径流污染的沃茨引起人类疾病方面发挥着核心作用，并受到有利于本地细菌病原体增殖的环境条件的影响。该项目将整合; 1）基线和极端事件监测，使用先进的原位采样方法，2）有针对性的基于过程的研究，3）人类健康和病原体数据（包括连接河口病原体和人类疾病分离株的新方法），以及4）河口系统的3-D机制和人类健康模型。结果将提供一个机制/解释性的建模框架，将阐明原因，控制，命运和环境控制病原体的命运在NRE，以及随后对人类健康的风险;所有的影响可能伴随全球气候变化的极端事件的增加。水文，水质和人类健康模型将提高不同河口系统的病原体动力学知识，并产生工具，使社会能够应对和管理极端气候事件期间病原体（重新）动员和/或集中对人类健康的威胁。在更广泛的影响方面，这项研究将产生一个计算模型和一个独特的系统，用于收集和分析与极端气候事件后人类对河口病原体增加的反应有关的环境，生态和人类健康数据;所有这些都是为了保护公众免受通过河口传播的微生物疾病的影响。该项目将建立一个研究科学家和公共卫生从业人员网络，他们的工作是一体化的，以确保各区域有能力应对正在发生的极端气候事件。最后，该项目将继续培训本科生和研究生，包括少数群体和妇女，在这个新的研究领域，创造一个跨学科领域，汇集了生态学，医学微生物学，公共卫生和流行病学，建模，地理学，海洋学和水系统工程领域。

In this project, researchers at two campuses of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill and Charlotte) will continue their research focused on characterizing, quantifying, and modeling links among waterborne pathogens, extreme climatic events, impacts on nutrient/sediment delivery and phytoplankton blooms, and outbreaks of infectious disease in the anthropogenically-influenced Neuse River Estuary (NRE). With prior and current NSF support, the team utilized an interdisciplinary approach to examine potential links between eutrophication and pathogen fate and transport, including research on remobilization and particle attachment of pathogens, and modeling of pathogens and human health based upon data from normal climatic conditions. Work to date has demonstrated he enormous impact of extreme climatic (storm) events on the abovementioned processes.Accordingly, with this renewal funding, the research team will increase its focus on these events (storms and droughts), which have increased dramatically in the past decade, and will test a two-pronged hypothesis that relates the growth, transport, survival, and vectoring of autochthonous (native) and allochthonous (from runoff containing fecal contamination) heterotrophic pathogens to complex biological and physical processes in this key estuarine system. Research will evaluate process-level (i.e., climatic disruption, particle attachment, estuarine transport, vectoring of pathogens to coastal communities) linkages that play central roles in the causation of human disease from runoff-contaminated waters and subject to environmental conditions favoring proliferation of native bacterial pathogens. The project will integrate; 1) baseline and extreme event monitoring, using advanced in situ sampling approaches, 2) targeted process-based studies, 3) human health and pathogen data (including novel approaches to link estuarine pathogens and human disease isolates), and 4) 3-D mechanistic and human health models of the estuarine system. Results will provide for a mechanistic/explanatory modeling framework that will elucidate causes, controls, fates, and environmental controls on pathogen fate in the NRE, and subsequent risk to human health; all impacted by increases in extreme events likely to accompany global climate change. Hydrologic, water quality, and human health models will improve knowledge of pathogen dynamics in diverse estuarine systems, and yield tools that will allow society to respond to and manage threats to human health from pathogens (re)mobilized and/or concentrated during extreme climatic events. In terms of Broader Impacts, this research will yield both a computational model of and a unique system for collection and analysis of environmental, ecological, and human health data related to the response of human populations to the increase in pathogens in estuaries following extreme climatic events; all directed towards protection of the public from microbial disease transmitted through estuaries. This project will produce a network of research scientists and public health practitioners whose work is integrated to ensure the ability of regions to respond to extreme climatic events as they unfold. Lastly, the project will continue to train undergraduate and graduate students, including minority groups and women, in this new field of study, creating an interdisciplinary area that brings together the fields of ecology, medical microbiology, public health and epidemiology, modeling, geography, oceanography, and water systems engineering.