CAREER: Unraveling post-invasion dynamics of the amphibian-killing fungus via rapid genetic diversity assessments of both hosts and pathogens

职业：通过对宿主和病原体的快速遗传多样性评估，揭示杀死两栖动物的真菌的入侵后动态

• 批准号: 2041629
• 负责人: David Rodriguez
• 金额: $ 79.77万
• 依托单位: Texas State University - San Marcos
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2041629&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Unraveling; post; invasion; dynamics

In wildlife, prominent examples of mycoses (diseases caused by fungi) include white-nose syndrome and the recent spread and emergence of snake fungal disease, but no other fungal pathogens have been more destructive to wildlife than the amphibian chytrids (genus Batrachochytrium). Chytrids are essentially ubiquitous in the environment, yet they are relatively understudied. Amphibian chytrids continue to cause population declines and species extinctions globally. Unfortunately, the most severe amphibian declines have occurred in Neotropical forests, which are also threatened by deforestation. For tropical amphibians, the threat of disease, coupled with habitat loss, requires rapid measurements of host diversity at the population scale to unravel complex disease dynamics. Studies of disease dynamics can benefit from the development and use of genetic methods that can be applied in real-time and in the field. By leveraging emerging portable technology to measure genetic diversity, this project will gather data for both hosts and pathogens to test hypotheses regarding the specificity of their interactions, determine which hosts drive spread or act as reservoirs, and contribute to amphibian conservation. The research and educational goals of the project will be implemented at a Hispanic-Serving Institution and led by a first-generation, Mexican-American Principal Investigator (PI), and thus, will increase the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM at all levels. Additionally, the project will serve to train the next generation of students and international biologists in the application of emerging genetic methodologies to address common challenges in disease ecology, which can be extrapolated to other systems where diverse hosts drive pathogen spread.The overarching goal of this project is to elucidate fungal pathogen diversity and post-invasion pathogen dynamics in equatorial forests and their understudied canopies by identifying which hosts have driven the transition from an epizootic to an enzootic pathogen. The aims of this research are to: 1) perform real-time strain detection using portable quantitative PCR instruments and DNA sequencing using portable nanopore sequencers to reveal pathogen diversity and geographic distribution along an equatorial transect, 2) parse amphibian genetic identity in a hyper-diverse assemblage to allow host-specific estimates of pathogen/strain prevalence, and 3) use cophylogenetic analyses to test for the influence of host diversity on pathogen invasions. The PI is uniquely positioned to achieve these research goals while providing experiential learning opportunities to underrepresented students in STEM at the undergraduate and graduate level.This project is being jointly funded by the Systematics and Biodiversity Cluster and the Evolutionary Processes Cluster in the Division of Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation.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.

在野生动物中，真菌病（由真菌引起的疾病）的突出例子包括白鼻综合征和最近蔓延和出现的蛇真菌病，但没有其他真菌病原体比两栖动物壶菌（属）对野生动物更具破坏性。壶菌在环境中基本上是普遍存在的，但它们相对而言研究不足。两栖类壶菌继续在全球范围内造成种群数量下降和物种灭绝。不幸的是，最严重的两栖动物减少发生在新热带森林，这也受到森林砍伐的威胁。对于热带两栖动物，疾病的威胁，加上栖息地的丧失，需要在人口规模的主机多样性的快速测量，以解开复杂的疾病动态。疾病动力学的研究可以受益于实时和实地应用的遗传方法的开发和使用。通过利用新兴的便携式技术来测量遗传多样性，该项目将收集宿主和病原体的数据，以测试关于它们相互作用的特异性的假设，确定哪些宿主驱动传播或充当水库，并有助于两栖动物保护。该项目的研究和教育目标将在西班牙裔服务机构实施，并由第一代墨西哥裔美国人首席研究员（PI）领导，因此，将增加各级STEM中代表性不足的群体的参与。此外，该项目还将培训下一代学生和国际生物学家应用新兴的遗传学方法来应对疾病生态学的共同挑战，这可以外推到不同宿主驱动病原体传播的其他系统。该项目的总体目标是阐明真菌病原体的多样性和后-入侵病原体在赤道森林和他们的研究不足冠层的动态，通过确定主机驱动的转变，从流行病到地方病病原体。这项研究的目的是：1）使用便携式定量PCR仪器进行实时菌株检测和使用便携式纳米孔测序仪进行DNA测序，以揭示病原体多样性和沿着赤道样带的地理分布，2）解析高度多样性集合中的两栖动物遗传特性，以允许病原体/菌株流行的宿主特异性估计，（3）利用同源发生分析来检验宿主多样性对病原菌入侵的影响。PI在实现这些研究目标方面具有独特的优势，同时为本科和研究生阶段STEM领域代表性不足的学生提供体验式学习机会。该项目由美国国家科学基金会环境生物学部的系统学和生物多样性集群以及进化过程集群共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过以下方式获得支持：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。