Linking Host Diversity and Amphibian Disease: Experimental and Field Studies

将宿主多样性与两栖动物疾病联系起来：实验和实地研究

• 批准号: 0841758
• 负责人: Pieter Johnson
• 金额: $ 37.29万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-04-01 至 2013-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0841758&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Linking; Host; Diversity; Amphibian; Disease

Host-parasite interactions are embedded within dynamic, often highly disturbed environments, which can sharply alter patterns of infection and disease risk among hosts. Changes in land use and the resulting shifts in biological communities have been linked to the emergence of pathogens with medical and veterinary importance. However, the ecological mechanisms responsible for increases in infection often remain conjectural. This proposal examines how the ongoing transformation of landscapes surrounding wetlands influences an emerging issue of conservation importance: amphibian limb deformities. The flatworm parasite Ribeiroia ondatrae, which sequentially infects freshwater snails, larval amphibians, and birds, has been linked to widespread limb deformities in amphibians. Infection and the resulting malformations also increase amphibian mortality, potentially causing declines in amphibian populations. Building upon previously funded NSF research and ecological theory, the current proposal combines broad-scale field surveys and mechanistic experiments to understand how land use change, by altering host density and host diversity, will promote or limit Ribeiroia abundance and amphibian malformations. This effort will specifically seek to identify how biodiversity losses in freshwater ecosystems affect the transmission of pathogenic parasites, such as Ribeiroia. Considering the growing number of emerging infections that threaten human health and wildlife conservation, results of the proposed efforts have broad application potential. Ribeiroia is not only growing in conservation importance itself, but is an excellent analog for other parasite infections of economic and human-health significance (e.g., human blood flukes). This proposal would further support cooperative efforts among amphibian biologists and ecologists to address ongoing declines in amphibian populations worldwide.

宿主-寄生虫相互作用嵌入动态的、通常是高度干扰的环境中，这可以急剧改变宿主之间的感染模式和疾病风险。土地利用的变化及其造成的生物群落的变化与具有医学和兽医重要性的病原体的出现有关。然而，导致感染增加的生态机制往往仍然是推测性的。本提案探讨了湿地周围景观的持续变化如何影响一个具有保护重要性的新问题：两栖动物肢体畸形。扁虫寄生于淡水蜗牛、两栖动物幼虫和鸟类身上，与两栖动物普遍的肢体畸形有关。感染和由此产生的畸形也增加了两栖动物的死亡率，可能导致两栖动物种群的减少。在先前资助的NSF研究和生态学理论的基础上，目前的建议结合了大规模的实地调查和机械实验，以了解土地利用变化如何通过改变宿主密度和多样性来促进或限制里贝罗原虫的数量和两栖动物的畸形。这一努力将具体寻求确定淡水生态系统中生物多样性的丧失如何影响致病性寄生虫的传播，例如里贝罗虫。考虑到威胁人类健康和野生动物保护的新发传染病数量不断增加，所提出的努力结果具有广泛的应用潜力。里贝罗虫不仅本身在保护方面的重要性日益增加，而且是其他具有经济和人类健康意义的寄生虫感染（例如，人类血吸虫）的极好类比。该提案将进一步支持两栖生物学家和生态学家之间的合作努力，以解决全球两栖动物数量持续下降的问题。