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RAPID: COVID-19 induced cessation of ecotourism and supplemental feeding: Implications for wildlife physiology, reproduction, and the microbiome

RAPID：COVID-19 导致生态旅游和补充喂养停止：对野生动物生理学、繁殖和微生物组的影响

基本信息

批准号：
2031420
负责人：
Susannah French
金额：
$ 18.45万
依托单位：
Utah State University
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2020
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2020-08-15 至 2022-07-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2031420&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
RAPID COVID 19 induced cessation

项目摘要

Wildlife feeding by tourists is a widespread phenomenon across various species and environments. While it can provide important economic benefits to countries and local communities, it also poses significant challenges for affected wildlife. These widespread practices may induce habituation, cause stress, impact health, and alter growth and survival, all of which can lead to population changes. However, the ability to control for extraneous factors in tourism-related wildlife feeding conditions is often difficult if not impossible, rendering scientific study challenging. Furthermore, the effects of termination of wildlife feeding have rarely been considered. The unprecedented cessation of tourism and food provisioning due to the COVID-19 global pandemic has created a natural experiment that meets the aforementioned challenges to directly test the effects of this phenomenon on critically endangered rock iguanas in The Bahamas. The proposed work will leverage this unique opportunity to test the effects of widescale resource restriction and dietary change on the health of free-living animals. The implications of this work reach far beyond that of the tourist sector and can inform the effects of resource restriction for natural populations across species on a broader scale. Thus, understanding the consequences of supplemental feeding cessation will help inform countries on a broader scale that are working at making tourism practices more sustainable, which is particularly important for endangered species. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique situation via the restriction of human movement and contact resulting in severely reduced global travel. As a result, in countries like The Bahamas, there has been the complete removal of tourist stress and feeding pressures on wildlife across the country. Recent findings by the PIs examining critically endangered iguanas across an insular landscape in The Bahamas have illustrated significant tourist-driven effects on physiology and gut microbial composition. This work has also revealed significant associations among tourism, bacterial abundance, and physiology. The recent and sudden release from supplemental feeding by tourists has created a rare natural experiment by which the PIs can directly test the effects of diet shifts and restriction in natural populations of long-lived iguanas where pre-pandemic data are already available. The PIs will specifically focus on the gut microbiome, and test for direct associations and directionality with physiological systems important to health and survival. Moreover, the ongoing 40-year demographic study in this system will allow the PIs to relate this to survival, growth, and recruitment at the population level. The research group will work to facilitate transfer of results from this study to The Bahamas via long standing research partnerships and will provide opportunistic clarity on potential management strategies moving forward. To reach the broader community, outcomes will also be reported via Shedd Aquarium media and exhibits.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.

游客喂食野生动物是各种物种和环境中普遍存在的现象。虽然它可以为国家和当地社区带来重要的经济利益，但它也给受影响的野生动物带来了重大挑战。这些广泛的做法可能导致习惯化，造成压力，影响健康，改变生长和生存，所有这些都可能导致人口变化。然而，控制与旅游有关的野生动物喂养条件中的外来因素的能力往往是困难的，如果不是不可能的话，这使得科学研究具有挑战性。此外，终止野生动物摄食的影响很少被考虑。由于2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）全球大流行，旅游业和粮食供应前所未有地中断，这创造了一个自然的实验，以应对上述挑战，直接测试这一现象对巴哈马极度濒危岩鬣蜥的影响。拟议的工作将利用这一独特的机会来测试广泛的资源限制和饮食改变对自由生活动物健康的影响。这项工作的影响远远超出了旅游部门的影响，可以在更广泛的范围内为跨物种自然种群的资源限制提供信息。因此，了解停止补充喂养的后果将有助于在更大范围内为正在努力使旅游业更具可持续性的国家提供信息，这对濒危物种尤其重要。COVID-19大流行造成了一种独特的情况，限制了人员流动和接触，导致全球旅行严重减少。因此，在巴哈马这样的国家，全国各地的野生动物已经完全消除了游客的压力和喂养压力。最近，PIs在巴哈马群岛的一个岛屿上对极度濒危的鬣蜥进行了研究，结果表明，游客对生理和肠道微生物组成产生了重大影响。这项工作还揭示了旅游、细菌丰度和生理之间的显著关联。最近突然从游客的补充喂养中释放出来，创造了一个罕见的自然实验，通过这个实验，pi可以直接测试饮食变化和限制对长寿鬣蜥自然种群的影响，这些种群已经获得了流行病前的数据。pi将特别关注肠道微生物组，并测试与健康和生存重要的生理系统的直接关联和方向性。此外，该系统正在进行的40年人口研究将使pi能够将其与人口水平上的生存、增长和招聘联系起来。研究小组将通过长期的研究伙伴关系，努力促进将这项研究的结果转移到巴哈马，并将为未来潜在的管理战略提供机会性的清晰度。为了达到更广泛的社区，结果也将通过谢德水族馆媒体和展览报道。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。