CAREER: Integrating Field Experiments, Mathematical Models, and Inclusive Education To Understand Ecological Consequences of Variation in Host-Pathogen Interactions

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。在自然界中，致病病原体及其动物宿主都表现出巨大的变化。 例如，宿主的抗病能力、疾病暴露史和免疫力以及一般身体状况各不相同，而病原体感染宿主、在环境中持续存在以及长距离传播的能力也各不相同。 这种变异对疾病如何在人群中传播以及病原体和宿主物种的进化具有重要影响。 该项目将调查感染海湾贝母蝴蝶（Agraulis vanillae）的病毒变异的来源和后果。 田间和实验室实验将用于调查变异的三个主要来源：病原体遗传变异、宿主变异和由于人类影响（如城市化和气候变暖）而引起的环境变异。 这个职业生涯项目将通过教育工作得到加强，通过支持包容性的定量生物学研究和教学，为生态学带来新的观点。 尽管广泛认识到国家需要具有行业所需定量技能的毕业生，但许多本科生在定量内容方面苦苦挣扎，使科学学位课程的数量高得令人无法接受。 这项工作的教育组成部分是建立在生物教育研究的有效策略，保留在科学中代表性不足的学生，包括通过研究经验，基于课程的计划，个性化的指导，并建立在科学的归属感。该项目准备充分利用最新的理论和计算工具的优势，研究宿主和病原体的变化，以了解种内变异的遗传和生态来源如何影响宿主-病原体种群动态。 在昆虫-杆状病毒系统中，本研究将产生以下结果：1。利用田间和实验室实验来确定病原体生活史性状的种内变异如何影响病原体菌株之间的竞争结果以及宿主和病原体的长期种群动态; 2.量化宿主-病原体相互作用如何受到宿主对感染的敏感性和关键环境变异源的连续变化的影响; 3.使用将上述变异源纳入宿主和病原体性状分布的数学模型，将上述发现应用于更大规模和长期的种群后果。 这个职业项目的综合教育部分将产生以下核心成果：1。为圣地亚哥大学和波多黎各大学的本科生在两个地点的项目上合作建立长期合作计划的基础; 2.与当地合作伙伴和学校合作，在我们当地的圣地亚哥社区制定一个持续的本科生领导的双语推广计划; 3.创建，试点，并完善一个基于课程的计划，以招募和支持在圣地亚哥大学定量本科生物学研究中代表性不足的学生。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).In nature, both disease-causing pathogens and their animal hosts exhibit tremendous variation. For example, hosts vary in their ability to resist disease, their history of disease exposure and immunity, and their general physical condition, while pathogens vary in their abilities to infect hosts, persist in the environment, and spread over long distances. This variation has important consequences for how diseases spread in populations, and for the evolution of both pathogen and host species. This project will investigate sources and consequences of variation in a virus that infects the Gulf fritillary butterfly (Agraulis vanillae). Field and lab experiments will be used to investigate three main sources of variation: pathogen genetic variation, host variation, and environmental variation due to human impacts such as urbanization and a warming climate. This CAREER project will be strengthened by education efforts to bring new viewpoints into ecology through support of inclusive quantitative biology research and teaching. Despite a widely recognized national need for graduates with the quantitative skills sought by industry, many undergraduate students struggle with quantitative content and leave science degree programs in unacceptably high numbers. The educational components of this work are founded in biology education research on effective strategies for retaining underrepresented students in science, including individualized mentoring through research experiences, course-based programs, and building a sense of belonging in science. This project is well-poised to take advantage of recent advances in theory and computational tools for studying host and pathogen variation, in order to understand how genetic and ecological sources of intraspecific variation affect host-pathogen population dynamics. Working in an insect-baculovirus system, this research will produce the following outcomes: 1. Use field and lab experiments to determine how intraspecific variation in pathogen life history traits affects outcomes of competition between pathogen strains and long-term population dynamics of hosts and pathogens; 2. Quantify how host-pathogen interactions are affected by continuous variation in host susceptibility to infection and key environmental sources of variation; 3.Apply the above findings to larger scales and long-term population consequences using mathematical models that incorporate the above sources of variation into distributions of host and pathogen traits. The integrated educational component of this CAREER project will produce the following core outcomes: 1. Establish the foundation for a long-term collaborative program with pairs of University of San Diego and University of Puerto Rico undergraduates working together on projects across both sites; 2. Develop a program for sustained undergraduate-student-led bilingual outreach in our local San Diego community, working with local partners and schools; 3. Create, pilot, and refine a course-based program to recruit and support underrepresented students in quantitative undergraduate biology research at the University of San Diego.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.