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

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。在自然界中，这两种致病病原体及其动物宿主表现出巨大的差异。例如，宿主的抵抗能力、疾病暴露和免疫史以及他们的一般身体状况各不相同，而病原体感染宿主、在环境中持续和远距离传播的能力也不同。这种变异对疾病在种群中的传播方式以及病原体和宿主物种的进化都有重要的影响。该项目将调查一种感染海湾贝母蝴蝶(Agraulis Vanillae)的病毒变异的来源和后果。田间和实验室实验将被用来调查三个主要的变异来源：病原体遗传变异，寄主变异，以及由于城市化和气候变暖等人类影响而导致的环境变异。这一职业项目将通过教育努力得到加强，通过支持包容性的数量生物学研究和教学将新观点带入生态学。尽管全国普遍需要具备行业所需的量化技能的毕业生，但许多本科生在量化内容上苦苦挣扎，离开理科学位课程的人数高得令人无法接受。这项工作的教育组成部分建立在生物教育研究中，该研究旨在留住科学方面代表性不足的学生的有效战略，包括通过研究经验、基于课程的计划进行个性化指导，以及建立科学归属感。该项目准备充分利用最近在理论和计算工具方面的进展来研究寄主和病原体变异，以了解种内变异的遗传和生态来源如何影响寄主-病原体种群动态。在昆虫-杆状病毒系统中工作，这项研究将产生以下结果：1.使用田间和实验室实验来确定病原体生活史特征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感染易感性和关键环境变异来源的持续变化的影响；3.使用数学模型将上述发现应用于更大范围和长期的种群后果，该数学模型将上述变异来源合并到宿主和病原体特征的分布中。这一职业项目的综合教育部分将产生以下核心成果：1.与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，为长期合作项目奠定基础；2.在我们当地的圣地亚哥社区，与当地合作伙伴和学校合作，开发一个以本科生为主导的持续双语拓展项目；3.创建、试点和完善一个以课程为基础的计划，以招收和支持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优势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.