Development of a Theoretical Basis for Modeling Disease Processes in Marine Invertebrates

动物流行病如何在海洋无脊椎动物种群中开始和终止，以及这一过程如何得到传播的支持，这一一般性问题为扩大海洋疾病暴发的评估提供了基础。要解决这个问题，需要建立一个海洋系统中无脊椎动物之间疾病传播的理论框架。这样一个框架将有助于全面推进对海洋传染病生态学的理解。这项建议概述了一个综合实验和建模的努力，将提供一个海洋无脊椎动物疾病的一般理论。该模型将被告知使用皮肤病，引起的帕金斯marinus，在东部牡蛎（Crassostrea virginica），作为一个实验系统。然而，该模型将适用于所有无柄或近无柄的物种，其运动仅限于小规模（如双壳类，腹足类，海胆，珊瑚）和一系列的水动力制度，从河口泻湖珊瑚礁区。该项目是跨学科的，并在几个学科集成。该团队在软体动物病理学和动物流行病学，遗传学，沿海和河口系统，疾病过程和遗传环境的建模方面拥有独特的专业知识，以及成功的合作研究的悠久历史。通过整合我们跨学科的专业知识，该项目有望为传染病的疾病传播过程提供新的见解，这些传染病是由建立在接触率基础上的传统易感染耐药模型描述不佳的。这种疾病传播模型的缺陷在固着海洋生物的许多分类群中广泛存在。该项目还响应了海洋疾病管理讲习班的建议，即制定可适用于具体系统的海洋疾病总体框架，并了解环境因素造成疾病传播和病原体传播的决定因素。该项目的结果将为海洋系统中疾病和疾病传播的建模提供重要的理论基础。该项目将有助于在遗传学，病理学，基因组学以及人口和循环建模等学科中培养学生和早期职业科学家，这些学科是解决与渔业和海洋沿海系统相关的许多重要问题所必需的。项目成果将通过科学会议、同行审查文献出版物和网站传播。项目成果将通过STEM教育部和Old自治领大学沿海物理海洋学中心之间的合作外展计划用于正在进行的外展工作。额外的外联活动将通过特拉华州河口伙伴关系和海湾发现项目进行，这些组织从事特拉华州海湾的公共外联活动。

The general question of how epizootics are initiated and terminated in marine invertebrate populations and how this process is supported by transmission provides a basis for expanding the evaluation of marine disease outbreaks. Addressing this question requires development of a theoretical framework for disease transmission among invertebrates in marine systems. Such a framework will contribute to the general advancement of the understanding of the Ecology of Marine Infectious Diseases (EMID). This proposal outlines a combined experimental and modeling effort that will provide a general theory for marine invertebrate diseases. The model will be informed using Dermo disease, caused by Perkinsus marinus, in Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica), as an experimental system. However, the model will be applicable to all sessile or nearly sessile species whose movement is restricted to small scales (e.g. bivalves, gastropods, sea urchins, corals) and to a range of hydrodynamic regimes from estuaries to lagoons to coral reef tracts. This project is interdisciplinary and is integrated across several disciplines. The team has a unique mixture of expertise in molluscan pathology and epizootiology, genetics, and modeling of coastal and estuarine systems, disease processes and the genetic milieu, as well as a long history of successful collaborative research. By integrating our expertise across disciplines, this project promises to provide novel insights into the disease transmission process for infectious diseases that are poorly described by traditional susceptible-infected-resistant models built upon contact rates. This deficiency in modeling disease transmission is widespread across many taxa of sessile marine organisms. The project also responds to the recommendations in EMID workshops for the development of general frameworks for marine diseases that can be applied to specific systems and to understanding the determinants of transmission of diseases and the spread of pathogens by environmental factors. The results of this project will provide an important advancement in the theoretical basis for modeling diseases and disease transmission in marine systems. This project will contribute to the training of students and early career scientists in disciplines of genetics, pathology, genomics, and population and circulation modeling that is needed to solve many of the important problems associated with fisheries and marine coastal systems. Project results will be disseminated through scientific conferences, publication in the peer-review literature, and websites. Project results will be used in ongoing outreach efforts through a collaborative outreach program between the Department of STEM Education and the Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography at Old Dominion University. Additional outreach will be through the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary and the Bayshore Discovery Project, organizations engaged in public outreach for Delaware Bay.