DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Consequences of resource heterogeneity for immune defense, connectivity, and rabies dynamics in vampire bats

世界各地的野生动物都是由人类有意或无意地喂养的。这种常见的活动可以改变野生动物的生理和行为，加强人与野生动物的互动，并通过传染病的传播影响人类健康。这项研究将研究喂食野生动物如何影响传染病的传播，重点是吸血蝙蝠和狂犬病病毒。它将开发出这样的模型：a)当家畜饲养扩展到不受干扰的栖息地时，预测未来狂犬病的传播；b)预测正在迅速退耕的地区的人和动物狂犬病风险。结果可能会改变社会对从鸟类喂食者到生态旅游等活动的看法，并将直接改善对一种致命疾病传播的预测。该项目将支持对一名博士生进行现代分子生物学技术的教育和培训，并将开发用于评估蝙蝠疾病的新工具。这项研究将把观察到的牲畜数量、抗病毒免疫和蝙蝠在群体之间传播之间的关系整合到狂犬病传播的数学模型中。早期的研究表明，家畜饲养与较高的慢性压力、较低的抗体水平和较大的吸血蝙蝠群体有关，这表明家畜饲养产生了免疫受损吸血蝙蝠的来源种群。第一个研究目标将在实地收集的样本上使用新的免疫学工具来表征吸血蝙蝠在两个地区的牲畜密度地点梯度上抗病毒细胞因子的表达。这些数据将被用来测试生活在牲畜密集栖息地的蝙蝠是更多还是更少地投资于促进对狂犬病病毒的抗性的反应。该项目的第二个目标将使用分子遗传学方法，通过现场收集的组织样本，在精细的空间尺度上表征蝙蝠种群的连通性。结果将决定蝙蝠的移动是否会随着牲畜的分布而变化。最后，研究人员将开发一个空间上明确的狂犬病传播的数学模型，该模型结合了前两个目标的结果，为理解资源异质性如何影响病毒传播提供了一个机械框架。

Wildlife are fed by humans intentionally or accidentally all over the world. This common activity can change wildlife physiology and behavior, intensify human-wildlife interactions, and influence human health through the transmission of infectious disease. This research will examine how feeding wildlife influences the spread of infectious disease, focusing on vampire bats and rabies virus. It will develop models that can a) forecast the future spread of rabies when livestock rearing expands into undisturbed habitats and b) predict human and animal rabies risk in areas undergoing rapid land conversion. Results could alter societal views on activities ranging from bird feeders to ecotourism and will directly improve predictions of the spread of a lethal disease. The project will support education and training of a doctoral student in modern molecular biology techniques and will develop new tools for evaluating disease in bats. The research will integrate observed relationships between livestock abundance, antiviral immunity, and bat dispersal between colonies into mathematical models of rabies transmission. Earlier research showed that livestock rearing is associated with higher chronic stress, lower antibody levels, and larger vampire bat colonies, suggesting that livestock rearing produces source populations of immune-impaired vampire bats. The first research goal will use novel immunological tools on field-collected samples to characterize expression of antiviral cytokines of vampire bats across a livestock density site gradient in two regions. These data will be used to test if bats in livestock-dense habitat invest more or less in responses that promote resistance to rabies virus. The project's second goal will use molecular genetics approaches to characterize the connectivity of bat populations at fine spatial scales through field-collected tissue samples. Results will determine whether or not bat movement varies with livestock distribution. Finally, the researchers will develop a spatially explicit mathematical model of rabies transmission that incorporates results from the first two goals to provide a mechanistic framework for understanding how resource heterogeneity affects viral spread.