Can group living and the influence of Allee Effects explain infectious disease vulnerability in social species? Emergence of M. mungi in the cooperative breeding banded mongoose

许多野生动物物种是社会性的，生活在群体中，这为生存提供了至关重要的利益。群体生活和个体之间的合作通过提高繁殖、提高觅食成功率和提高抵御捕食者的能力来提高群体表现。然而，人们也知道，集团的相对规模很重要。如果一个群体中的个体数量减少，那么收益也可能减少，从而潜在地威胁到群体的持久性。这种现象被称为Allee效应：当个体的数量或密度由于生态或遗传因素（或两者的组合）而低于某一阈值时，种群或群体面临灭绝的风险增加。另一方面，人口的增加和人口密度的增加也可能造成问题，因为它们增加了群体对传染病的脆弱性。 Allee效应已经被广泛研究，并且已知对野生动物生态学具有重要影响，但是Allee效应和疾病出现之间的联系还不太清楚。然而，了解群体规模和Allee效应如何驱动传染病相互作用对于保护和管理濒危社会物种以及控制感染群体生活物种并威胁人类和动物健康的新兴疾病至关重要。在该奖项资助的研究中，Kathleen亚历山大博士（弗吉尼亚理工学院州立大学）和她的团队将采取创新的方法来解决这一关键的知识差距。他们将把经验实地研究与数学建模相结合，以调查和确定影响群体生活物种疾病传播的原则和过程。他们还将建立与综合博士后和研究生培训计划相联系的国际科学网络，以培养具有国际新兴传染病研究技能的多学科科学家，这是一个日益需要的领域。该项目的其他教育组成部分包括一个结构化的K-7教育计划，以培养兴趣和增加对研究地区儿童传染病生态学的理解。该研究项目还将建立一个基金会，通过互动讲座和包括播客和社交媒体在内的当代学习媒体，促进博茨瓦纳青年和联合国少数民族大学本科生之间的协作学习。这个项目将把来自博茨瓦纳的学生联系起来，在博茨瓦纳，艾滋病毒/艾滋病和结核病造成的传染病死亡很常见，而在美国，流行性传染病很少发生。学生将在广泛的层面上探索疾病的病因和控制，重点关注全球共同的需求。这一方法旨在加强跨文化理解和国际领导能力，以推动少数群体在新出现的传染病生态学方面的科学发现。为了研究Allee效应和传染病出现之间的联系，亚历山大和她的团队将建立在他们对博茨瓦纳北方的带状猫鼬（Mungos mungo）的长期研究基础上。高度社会化的带状猫鼬受到一种新的、新兴的结核病病原体--孟氏分枝杆菌的威胁。该病原体与人类结核病病原体M密切相关。非洲，并造成带状猫鼬的高死亡率，威胁到较小的社会群体的持续存在。 研究小组将采取综合方法，将宿主和病原体的分子遗传学研究与猫鼬社会群体的种群生物学和行为生态学研究联系起来，这些研究发生在景观的受保护和未受保护区域。他们将使用这种实证研究系统来调查和确定决定传染病和Allee效应之间相互作用结果的主导因素，过程和阈值。 研究结果将用于开发一个概念框架和先进的知识和理论，可用于确定是否以及何时应将Allee效应纳入群体生活物种的传染病模型，以及如何计算这些相互作用的特征。结果将是重要的社会野生动物物种的管理参与传染病的重要性，以动物和公共卫生，以及濒危群体生活物种的保护。

Many wildlife species are social and live in groups, which provides benefits critical to survival. Group living and cooperation between individuals improve group performance by enhancing reproduction, improving foraging success, and increasing the ability to defend against predators. However, it is also known that the relative size of the group matters. If the number of individuals in a group decreases, the benefits also may decrease, potentially threatening group persistence. This phenomenon is referred to as the Allee effect: a population or group is at an increased risk of extinction when the number or density of individuals falls below a certain threshold due to either ecological or genetic factors (or a combination of the two). On the other hand, increased populations and increased population densities also can be problematic because they enhance group vulnerability to infectious disease. Allee effects have been widely studied and are known to have important implications for wildlife ecology but the connection between Allee effects and disease emergence is much less well understood. Understanding how group size and Allee effects drive infectious disease interactions is critical, however, to the conservation and management of endangered social species as well as to the control of emerging diseases that infect group-living species and threaten both human and animal health. In the research funded by this award, Dr. Kathleen Alexander (Virginia Polytechnic Institute State University) and her team will take an innovative approach to address this critical knowledge gap. They will integrate empirical field studies with mathematical modeling to investigate and identify principles and processes that influence disease transmission in group-living species. They also will establish international scientific networks linked to a comprehensive postdoctoral and graduate student-training program to produce multidisciplinary scientists with skills in international emerging infectious disease research, an area of increasing need. Other education components of the project include a structured K-7 educational program to foster interest and increase understanding of infectious disease ecology in children in the study region. The research project will also establish a foundation to foster collaborative learning between Botswana youth and undergraduate minority students in the United through interactive lectures and contemporary learning media including podcasts and social media. This program will link students from Botswana, where infectious disease deaths from HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis are common, and the United States where pandemic infectious disease is rarely experienced. Students will explore disease causation and control on a broad level with a focus on the common global need. This approach is directed at strengthening cross-cultural understanding and international leadership capacity in minority-driven scientific discovery in the ecology of emerging infectious disease. To study the connection between Allee effects and infectious disease emergence, Alexander and her team will build on their long-term study of banded mongoose (Mungos mungo) in northern Botswana. The highly social banded mongoose is threatened with a novel, emerging tuberculosis (TB) pathogen, Mycobacterium mungi. This pathogen is closely related to the human TB pathogen, M. africanum, and causes high levels of mortality among banded mongoose, threatening the persistence of smaller social groups. The research team will take an integrated methodological approach that links molecular genetic studies of the host and pathogen with population biology and behavioral ecology studies of mongoose social groups that occur across both protected and unprotected areas of the landscape. They will use this empirical study system to investigate and identify dominant factors, processes, and thresholds that determine the outcome of the interaction between infectious disease and Allee effects. Research results will be used to develop a conceptual framework and advance knowledge and theory that can be used to determine if and when Allee effects should be included in models of infectious disease in group-living species and how these interaction should be computationally characterized. Results will be important to the management of social wildlife species involved in transmission of infectious diseases of importance to both animal and public health as well as to the conservation of endangered group-living species.