CAREER: Parasites, Sea Level Rise, and Ecosystem Dynamics: Investigating the Pattern and Process of Increasing Trematode Prevalence During Transgression

PI表明，在海平面上升的条件下，沿海环境中寄生扁虫侵染文蛤及其近亲的情况显著增加。这些文蛤通常是经济上重要的食物来源，或者在对人类重要的食物网中扮演着重要的角色。在两个大陆的河口和海岸环境的现代贝壳和化石贝壳中已经注意到了这种模式，但在单一区域的这些环境中尚未表现出这种模式。更重要的是，推动寄生虫日益严重的环境和/或生物因素仍然未知。该项目将测试该模式的普遍适用性，使用各种技术来确定为什么寄生虫在海平面上升期间蓬勃发展，并将为确定寄生扁虫及其宿主可能如何应对环境变化的努力提供长期视角。因此，这项工作将对古生物学、地质学、生态学、寄生虫学、流行病学和医学产生广泛的兴趣。这项职业计划的教育计划与研究独特地结合在一起，利用密苏里大学(MU)的地质背景和文化地标，通过开发名为《柱状物的地质学》的新课程，扩大公众对地球系统、过程和历史的理解。预测病原体将如何应对21世纪的环境变化的尝试往往缺乏生态系统如何应对随着地质时间的推移而发生的类似变化的视角。通过将各种地质、古生物学、生态学和地球化学技术应用于最近的化石记录，这个变革性的项目将调查寄生虫作为海底生态系统的关键和经常被忽视的组成部分，及其群落在全新世和更新世海平面旋回中如何做出反应的模式和过程。将检查各种因素，如盐度、温度、宿主可获得性和群落结构。与此同时，国际和平研究所正在开发一门名为《柱子地质学》的课程，以改善关于深部时间和地球系统过程基本原理的教育，这是该奖项研究的关键主题。这门课程将为密苏里州及其他地区的初中和高中科学教师提供一门新课程，覆盖约600名普通教育本科生，并为其提供面向标准的专业发展研讨会和在线课程。国际和平研究所和博洛尼亚大学(意大利)的同事将为研究生和本科生(REU)提供有指导的国际研究经验。

The PI has shown that the occurrence of parasitic flatworms infesting clams and their relatives in coastal environments increased significantly during conditions of sea level rise. These clams are often economically important sources of food or play vital roles in food webs important to humans. This pattern has been noted in modern and fossil shells from estuaries and shore environments on two continents, but has not yet been demonstrated across these environments in a single region. More importantly, the environmental and/or biological factors driving the increasing severity of parasitism remain unknown. This project will test the general applicability of the pattern, use a variety of techniques to determine why parasites flourished during sea level rise, and will provide a long term perspective for efforts to determine how parasitic flatworms and their hosts will likely respond to environmental change. As such, this work will be of broad interest in paleobiology, geology, ecology, parasitology, epidemiology, and medicine. The education plan for this CAREER proposal is uniquely integrated with the research by taking advantage of the geological setting and cultural landmarks at the University of Missouri (MU) to expand the public understanding of Earth systems processes and history through the development of a novel curriculum called The Geology of the Columns.Attempts to predict how pathogens will respond to environmental change in the 21st Century often lack a perspective of how ecosystems have responded to similar change over geologic time. By applying a variety of geological, paleontological, ecological, and geochemical techniques to the recent fossil record, this transformative project will investigate the pattern and process of how parasites, as key and often overlooked components of seafloor ecosystems, and their communities have responded during Holocene and Pleistocene sea level cycles. A variety of factors will be examined, such as salinity, temperature, host availability and community structure. In parallel, the PI is developing a curriculum called Geology of the Columns to improve education about the basic principles of deep time and Earth systems processes, key themes in the research of this award. This curriculum will lead to a new course reaching ~600 general education undergraduate students and a standards-oriented professional development workshop and online course for middle and high school science teachers in Missouri and beyond. The PI and colleagues at the Universitá di Bologna (Italy) will provide mentored international research experiences for graduate and undergraduate students (REU).