Dissertation Research: Natural and acquired immunity within Yellowstone's wolves: consequences for disease severity, survival, and reproduction

免疫系统在维持整体健康和阻止寄生虫方面起着关键作用。虽然对免疫功能的投资可能会提高生存率，但也可能会以繁殖为代价，因为资源有限或过度反应的免疫系统攻击身体。在这里，作者旨在探索灰狼野生种群中免疫投资，疾病严重程度，生存和繁殖之间关系的证据。1995年，灰狼被重新引入黄石国家公园，在这个种群中，研究人员研究了寄生虫感染的自然过程。这项工作表明，个别狼在感染犬瘟热病毒和疥螨的反应不同，尽管无法控制感染的高生存成本。这些变异都不能用宿主的年龄、性别和社会地位等特征来解释。这个项目将检验免疫功能和繁殖之间的权衡解释个体之间免疫变异的维持的假设。免疫投资的几个指数（天然抗体，特异性抗体和总抗体）将被测量为疾病严重程度和通过已知疾病爆发的存活率的预测因子。 这些信息将与生殖健康相匹配，以测试免疫反应的增加是否会以生殖为代价。 这项工作将进一步检验具体的预测，即繁殖成本以减少窝仔数的形式出现，这些成本可能在疾病爆发期间以增加窝仔存活率的形式被抵消。 这项研究的结果将提高我们对野生动物种群中维持免疫功能变化的机制的理解，这在保护生物学和野生动物管理中具有重要的应用。该项目将建立在一个关于野生食肉动物被重新引入国家公园的丰富的长期公共数据集的基础上，并将进一步加深我们对一个标志性保护物种的驱动因素的理解。这项研究的结果将发布在公民科学网站上，并通过国家公园管理局的公开讲座和学校团体传播。这项研究还将扩大博士生的研究培训和技能。

The immune system plays a critical role in maintaining overall health and keeping parasites at bay. While investment in immune function may improve survival, it may also come at a cost to reproduction, either because of limited resources or an over-reactive immune system attacking the body. Here, the authors aim to explore the evidence for relationships between immune investment, disease severity, survival, and reproduction in a wild population of gray wolves. Gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995, and within this population, researchers have studied the natural process of parasite infections. This work has shown that individual wolves vary in their response to infection with canine distemper virus and sarcoptic mange, despite the high survival-costs associated with an inability to control infection. None of this variation is explained by host characteristics such as age, sex, and social status. This project will test the hypothesis that a tradeoff between immune function and reproduction explains the maintenance of immune variation among individuals. Several indices of immune investment (natural antibodies, specific antibodies, and total antibodies) will be measured as predictors of disease severity and survival through known disease outbreaks. This information will be matched to reproductive fitness in order to test whether increased immune responsiveness comes at a cost to reproduction. This work will further test the specific prediction that costs to reproduction occur in the form of decreased litter sizes, and that these costs may be offset during disease outbreaks in the form of increased litter survival. Results from this research will improve our understanding of the mechanisms by which variation in immune function is maintained in wildlife populations, which has important applications in conservation biology and wildlife management. The project will build on a rich, long-term public dataset on a wild carnivore being reintroduced to national parks, and will further our understanding of the drivers of an iconic conservation species. Results from this study will be published on a citizen science website, and disseminated via public lectures through the National Park Service and to school groups. This study will also expand the research training and skill sets of a doctoral student.