A multi-scale approach to predicting infectious multi-host disease spread in marine benthic communities

海洋疾病对海洋生态系统具有破坏性影响，这项工作将直接检查了解海洋疾病传播的框架。一个由来自维尔京群岛大学（UVI）、路易斯安那州立大学（LSU）、莱斯大学、德克萨斯大学阿灵顿分校和伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的生态学家、海洋连通性和疾病建模师、微生物学家和珊瑚免疫学家组成的团队将开发一个模型，预测一种破坏性的加勒比海珊瑚疾病的传播，这种疾病有可能影响珊瑚礁的经济价值。该项目将支持研究生在多个少数民族服务机构的多学科领域和实验室研究经验，并将为本科生提供建模、生态和分子分析技术方面的实践培训。弗吉尼亚州立大学和路易斯安那州立大学都在EPSCoR管辖范围内，拥有多样化的学生团体，包括许多未被充分代表的少数民族（URM）学生。研究团队将共同为URM学生提供STEM领域的研究经验。项目结果将通过虚拟公共方案编制和维尔京群岛珊瑚病咨询委员会广泛传播，并在vicoraldisease.org网站上公布最新情况。还将为美属维尔京群岛举办珊瑚疾病应对讲习班，在讲习班上将介绍项目成果，并将其用于支持疾病应对规划。在过去的四十年里，海洋疾病已经摧毁了海洋沿海生态系统的生态系统工程师，包括岩石潮间带、海草和珊瑚礁。导致这些疾病的病原体往往难以分离、表征和确认，部分原因是它们影响多个宿主物种，并可通过洋流传播，也可通过个人接触传播。在这里，我们提出了一个研究海洋疾病的多尺度流行病模型，该模型解决了宿主内和斑块内的疾病动态，并明确承认病原体在种群之间的传播。我们的跨学科研究团队由生态学家、连通性和疾病建模师、微生物学家和珊瑚免疫学家组成，他们将整合迄今为止海洋疾病传播的最大预测因素：允许疾病抗性或易感性的个体宿主物种特征，可能具有独特群落结构的群落内的局部传播，以及易感群落之间的水动力连通性。建模将得到丰富的数据集的支持，这些数据集包括斑块内部和斑块之间的种群特征和疾病动态，以及物种水平疾病反应的分子数据。该项目将通过将多维尺度和不同宿主易感性纳入现有流行病学模型，促进对传染病的认识。该模型将特别推进海洋疾病研究框架，并有可能阐明一种破坏性的加勒比珊瑚病（石珊瑚组织丧失病）的传播特性，这种疾病符合海洋疾病最令人困惑和最臭名昭著的特征：一种难以捉摸的病原体感染多个宿主。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。

Marine diseases have devastating impacts on ocean ecosystems and this work will directly examine the framework for understanding disease transmission in the ocean. A team of ecologists, ocean connectivity and disease modelers, microbiologists, and coral immunologists (from the University of Virgin Islands (UVI), Louisiana State University (LSU), Rice University, University of Texas-Arlington and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) will develop a model that predicts transmission of a devastating Caribbean coral disease that has the potential to impact the economic value of coral reefs, including those located in the U.S. This project will support multidisciplinary field and laboratory research experiences of graduate students at multiple minority-serving institutions, and will provide undergraduate students with hands-on training in modeling, ecological and molecular analysis techniques. UVI and LSU are in EPSCoR jurisdictions and have diverse student bodies, including numerous under-represented minority (URM) students. The research team will collaboratively provide URM students with research experiences in STEM fields. Project findings will be broadly communicated through virtual public programming, and through the Virgin Islands Coral Disease Advisory Committee with updates on the vicoraldisease.org website. A coral disease response workshop for the U.S. Virgin Islands will also be held, in which project results will be presented and used to support disease response planning.Over the last four decades, marine diseases have decimated ecosystem engineers in marine coastal ecosystems, including the rocky intertidal, seagrasses and coral reefs. The pathogens driving these diseases have frequently been challenging to isolate, characterize and confirm, in part because they affect multiple host species and can spread by ocean currents, as well as through individual contact. Here, we propose a multi-scale epidemic model for studying marine disease that addresses both within-host and within-patch disease dynamics, and explicitly acknowledges the dispersal of pathogens between populations. Our interdisciplinary research team of ecologists, connectivity and disease modelers, microbiologists, and coral immunologists will integrate the largest set of predictors of marine disease spread to date: individual host species traits that allow for disease resistance or susceptibility, local transmission within communities that may have unique community structure, and hydrodynamic connectivity among susceptible communities. Modeling will be supported with rich data sets of within- and among-patch population characteristics and disease dynamics as well as molecular data on species-level disease responses. This project will advance knowledge of infectious diseases by integrating multidimensional scales and differential host susceptibilities into existing epidemiological models. This model will particularly advance the framework for studying marine diseases and has the potential to elucidate the transmission properties of a devastating Caribbean coral disease (stony coral tissue loss disease) that fits the most confounding and notorious hallmarks of marine diseases: infection of multiple hosts by an elusive pathogen.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.