DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Blood meal source as an ecological determinant of bacterial community dynamics in the tick vector AMBLYOMMA AMERICANUM

了解扁虱传播疾病的生态学的一个关键障碍是识别扁虱赖以生存的特定脊椎动物或宿主。每一个宿主都可能很重要，因为不同的物种含有不同的营养物质、免疫系统分子和微生物的组合，这些都可以影响扁虱的病原体传播。这一博士论文改进项目将采用现有的分子技术来扩增以前扁虱血粉中的微量DNA残留物，以确定过去的宿主使用情况。然后，将使用基因测序方法来确定先前宿主对寻找宿主的扁虱中细菌群落组成的影响。这些信息将有助于解释硬蜱中细菌群落的变化，并预测环境中有感染性的硬蜱的丰度和分布。测试开发和测试将使用孤星扁虱，这是美国大陆三分之二地区最常见的叮咬人和动物的扁虱。它是几种人类和兽医病原体的已知媒介，也是许多其他细菌的载体，其在疾病传播中的意义尚未被很好地了解。血粉分析新方法的发展将为所有研究食血节肢动物生态学的研究人员提供有价值的工具，例如许多医学和经济上重要的扁虱物种。该分析通过利用DNA测序技术的最新进展来建立和增加样本吞吐量，从而提高了效率。该项目将对本科生进行实地和实验室研究方面的培训，包括生态学和分子方法。最后，研究人员向佐治亚州几个州立公园的工作人员和游客展示了他们的结果。

A key obstacle to understanding the ecology of tick-borne diseases is the identification of the specific vertebrate animals, or hosts, on which ticks feed. Each host is potentially important because different species contain different combinations of nutrients, immune system molecules, and microbes that can affect pathogen transmission by the ticks. This doctoral dissertation improvement project will adapt existing molecular techniques to amplify trace remains of DNA from previous tick blood meals in order to determine past host use. Gene sequencing methods will then be used to determine the effect of prior hosts on the composition of bacterial communities in host-seeking ticks. This information will help to explain variation in bacterial communities among ticks and to predict the abundance and distribution of infectious ticks in the environment. Assay development and testing will use the lone star tick, the most common tick biting humans and animals in two thirds of the continental USA. It is the known vector of several human and veterinary pathogens and the carrier of many other bacteria whose significance in disease transmission is not well understood.Development of a new approach to blood meal analysis will provide a valuable tool to all researchers who study the ecology of blood-feeding arthropods, such as many medically and economically important tick species. The assay improves efficiency by exploiting recent advances in DNA sequencing technology to establish and increase sample throughput. The project will train undergraduate students in field and laboratory research involving both ecological and molecular methods. Finally, the researchers present their results to the staff and visitors to several Georgia state parks.