NSFDEB-NERC: Diversity and disease: uniting community and disease ecology to understand how biodiversity affects parasite transmission

NSFDEB-NERC：多样性与疾病：将社区和疾病生态学结合起来，了解生物多样性如何影响寄生虫传播

• 批准号: 1754171
• 负责人: Pieter Johnson
• 金额: $ 60.49万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-07-15 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1754171&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSFDEB; NERC; Diversity; disease; uniting

Over the next century, two of the most pressing environmental threats will be the ongoing losses of biodiversity and the increased emergence of infectious diseases. Key challenges are to understand how these issues are related and to identify strategies for reducing their effects on human and wildlife populations. For instance, growing evidence suggests that the diversity of organisms found in natural habitats can affect how fast pathogens spread, including those that cause illness in humans. This research will investigate how changes in species diversity affect the risk of infection and disease in a threatened group of wildlife: amphibians. Researchers from the USA and the United Kingdom will work together to better understand how diversity influences pathogen transmission, using mechanistic models of infection fit to data from field observations, laboratory experiments, and whole-system manipulations. Results of the research will be used to assist natural resource managers to conserve threatened amphibian populations and to develop an interactive exhibit at the University of Colorado Natural History Museum which will engage elementary and middle school students. The project will also provide opportunities for broadening participation in science by involving undergraduate and graduate students.This proposal applies tools and concepts from community ecology to test the foundational relationships between biological diversity and parasite infection. Building upon extensive previous research by the investigators, data from (i) wetland surveys will be used to understand how communities of amphibians (frogs, toads, and salamanders) and infectious parasites change along a gradient in biodiversity. Field data will be combined with results from (ii) laboratory experiments that test alternative mechanisms through which biodiversity might affect infections to develop (iii) predictive models that forecast the influence of each mechanism on disease risk. Finally, model predictions will be tested and refined using a (iv) real-world experiment in which the presence and abundance of an influential host species is altered across a natural richness gradient. Results will be compared among parasite species that differ in the amount of disease they cause in amphibian hosts. The integration of wetland surveys, multi-scale experiments, and predictive modeling will fill a key knowledge gap by assessing the functional relationships between biodiversity and parasite transmission, which are difficult to discern from strictly observational data or studies of a single host or parasite species. These efforts will help resolve ongoing debates about the diversity-disease relationship and build a more comprehensive understanding of how changes in ecological communities interact to influence disease risk.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在下一个世纪，两个最紧迫的环境威胁将是生物多样性的持续丧失和传染病的增加。关键的挑战是要了解这些问题是如何相互关联的，并确定减少其对人类和野生动物种群的影响的战略。例如，越来越多的证据表明，在自然栖息地发现的生物多样性可以影响病原体的传播速度，包括那些导致人类疾病的病原体。这项研究将调查物种多样性的变化如何影响受威胁的野生动物群体：两栖动物的感染和疾病风险。来自美国和英国的研究人员将共同努力，更好地了解多样性如何影响病原体传播，使用适合现场观察，实验室实验和全系统操作数据的感染机制模型。研究结果将用于协助自然资源管理人员保护受威胁的两栖动物种群，并在科罗拉多大学自然历史博物馆举办互动展览，吸引中小学生参加。该项目还将提供机会，让本科生和研究生扩大参与科学，该提案应用社区生态学的工具和概念，以测试生物多样性和寄生虫感染之间的基本关系。在调查人员先前广泛研究的基础上，（i）湿地调查的数据将用于了解两栖动物（青蛙，蟾蜍和蝾螈）和传染性寄生虫的群落如何沿着生物多样性的梯度沿着变化。实地数据将与（二）实验室实验的结果相结合，这些实验测试生物多样性可能影响感染的替代机制，以开发（三）预测模型，预测每种机制对疾病风险的影响。最后，模型预测将使用（iv）真实世界的实验进行测试和改进，其中有影响力的宿主物种的存在和丰度在自然丰富度梯度上发生变化。结果将在不同的寄生虫物种之间进行比较，这些寄生虫物种在两栖动物宿主中引起的疾病数量不同。湿地调查，多尺度实验和预测建模的整合将通过评估生物多样性和寄生虫传播之间的功能关系来填补一个关键的知识空白，这是很难从严格的观察数据或单一宿主或寄生虫物种的研究中辨别出来的。这些努力将有助于解决目前关于多样性与疾病关系的争论，并更全面地了解生态群落的变化如何相互作用影响疾病风险。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Phenological synchrony shapes pathology in host–parasite systems

物候同步塑造了宿主-寄生虫系统的病理学

• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.2597
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• 作者: McDevitt-Galles, Travis;Moss, Wynne E.;Calhoun, Dana M.;Johnson, Pieter T.
• 通讯作者: Johnson, Pieter T.

Comparison of direct and indirect techniques for evaluating endoparasite infections in wild-caught newts (Taricha torosa and T. granulosa)

评估野生蝾螈（Taricha torosa 和 T. capsulosa）体内寄生虫感染的直接和间接技术比较

• DOI: 10.3354/dao03365
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Diseases of Aquatic Organisms
• 影响因子: 1.4
• 作者: Riepe, TB;Calhoun, DM;Johnson, PTJ
• 通讯作者: Johnson, PTJ

Disease hotspots or hot species? Infection dynamics in multi-host metacommunities controlled by species composition, not source location

疾病热点还是热点物种？

• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Ecology letters
• 影响因子: 8.8
• 作者: Wilber, M. Q.

Consumption of trematode parasite infectious stages: from conceptual synthesis to future research agenda

吸虫寄生虫感染阶段的消耗：从概念综合到未来的研究议程

• DOI: 10.1017/s0022149x23000111
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Journal of Helminthology
• 影响因子: 1.6
• 作者: Koprivnikar, J.;Thieltges, D.W.;Johnson, P.T.J.
• 通讯作者: Johnson, P.T.J.

How predator and parasite size interact to determine consumption of infectious stages

捕食者和寄生虫的大小如何相互作用来确定感染阶段的消耗

• DOI: 10.1007/s00442-021-05010-w
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Oecologia
• 影响因子: 2.7
• 作者: McDevitt-Galles, Travis;Carpenter, Sara A.;Koprivnikar, Janet;Johnson, Pieter T.
• 通讯作者: Johnson, Pieter T.