The ecology of disease and anthropogenic stressors in amphibians

了解人类活动如何影响自然种群和群落是环境生物学中的一个重要问题。人类的影响，如非生物压力源的释放，通常与疾病等自然因素同时发生，但非生物压力和野生动物疾病通常被视为彼此孤立。这个项目将调查非生物压力和野生动物疾病的影响。 两栖动物为研究非生物压力和疾病的相互作用提供了一个理想的系统;它们正在经历全球人口下降，非生物压力和疾病的存在被认为是原因。然而，这两个因素在很大程度上被孤立对待。该项目将测试一个假设，即低浓度的全球常见的非生物压力使两栖动物更容易受到两种疾病生物的影响，这两种疾病生物在世界各地造成了巨大的死亡率。本项目的目的是研究疾病和非生物压力对几种两栖动物的单独和综合影响。这项工作是变革性的，因为它汇集了三个典型的独立研究领域（生理生态学，疾病生态学和社区生态学），并将它们联合起来解决一个重大的生物学问题。拟议中的研究对理解非生物压力和疾病在野生动物种群中的作用以及对生物多样性的关注具有明确的意义。因此，这项研究的结果对保护和为全球非生物压力源的调节提供信息具有巨大的潜在意义。该项目将在两个机构培训几名研究生和本科生，包括代表性不足的群体。对社会的好处包括对传染病传播的新见解，重点是目前与全球两栖动物减少有关的病原体。因此，改善两栖动物保护的潜在影响是巨大的。研究结果将在期刊、会议、研讨会、网页和大众媒体上传播。研究结果还将被开发成教师讲习班和初中和高中教师的教学模块。总的来说，这项工作有望产生重大的科学影响以及对社会的许多更广泛的影响。

Understanding how human activities affect natural populations and communities is an important issue in environmental biology. Human impacts such as the release of abiotic stressors commonly co-occur with natural factors such as diseases, yet abiotic stress and wildlife diseases are commonly considered in isolation of each other. This project will investigate the effects of abiotic stress and wildlife diseases in concert. Amphibians offer an ideal system for studying the interaction of abiotic stress and diseases; they are experiencing global population declines and the presence of abiotic stressors and diseases have been implicated as causes. However, these two factors have largely been treated in isolation. This project will test the hypothesis that low concentrations of globally common abiotic stressors make amphibians more susceptible to two disease organisms that are causing tremendous mortality around the world. The objective of this project is to examine the separate and combined impacts of diseases and abiotic stressors on several species of amphibians. This work is transformative because it brings together three typically separate fields of research (physiological ecology, disease ecology, and community ecology) and unites them to tackle a major biological question. The proposed research has clear implications for understanding the role of abiotic stress and diseases in wildlife populations and for concerns about biodiversity in general. As a result, findings from this research have enormous potential implications for conservation and informing the regulation of abiotic stressors worldwide.The broader impacts are multi-dimensional. The project will train several graduate and undergraduate students at two institutions, including under-represented groups. The benefits to society include new insights into the spread of infectious disease, with a focus on pathogens that are currently associated with worldwide amphibian declines. Hence, the potential impacts for improved amphibian conservation are enormous. The results will be disseminated in journals, conferences, seminars, web pages, and the popular press. The results also will be developed into Teacher Workshops and teaching modules for middle and high school teachers. Collectively, this work promises to have a substantial scientific impact as well as numerous broader impacts on society.