RUI: Linking Ecology, Behavior, and Immunology to Spatio-Temporal Variation in Helminth Transmission

RUI：将生态学、行为学和免疫学与蠕虫传播的时空变化联系起来

• 批准号: 2207980
• 负责人: Amanda Hund
• 金额: $ 299.97万
• 依托单位: Grinnell College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2022-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2207980&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Linking; Ecology; Behavior; Immunology

Parasites are often spread unevenly across space, where some host populations have few parasites and others are heavily infected. This pattern is common, but still poorly understood and poses a considerable barrier to accurately predicting and managing diseases. This is especially true for parasites that have complex life cycles or move between different host species. This includes many parasitic worms (helminths), which infect over two billion people worldwide and cause serious disease in livestock, yet have been historically understudied. This project connects empirical data with mathematical models to understand and predict how behavior, immunology, and ecology within each host species shapes parasite transmission across space and through time. This research focuses on a well-studied tapeworm system which infects fish-eating birds (Loons), copepods, and threespine stickleback fish in freshwater lakes. By integrating field studies, laboratory experiments, genetic studies, and mathematical models across all three hosts and the parasite itself, this project provides a detailed understanding of the transmission of a complex-life cycle parasite and builds a modeling toolkit that can be applied to other parasites. To share this work, the investigators have developed an art-science collaboration involving indigenous artists and a science journalism student to produce a traveling exhibition focused on this project. Research is also being incorporated into the classroom through a course-based undergraduate research experience, an interdisciplinary undergraduate course focused on the connections between art and science, a high school summer science program, and is being made broadly available through published lesson plans.Parasite transmission is shaped by a complex interplay of ecological, behavioral, and immunological factors, yet our understanding of how these factors interact and their relative impacts on disease prevalence across scales remains fragmented. The project develops a general framework, informed by empirical data, for understanding and predicting how these different processes operate within multiple hosts and shape parasite transmission and distribution across space and time. This work addresses four main questions: (1) What are the relative contributions of parasite exposure (a dose-response) versus immunity on transmission dynamics? (2) How sensitive are exposure and immunity to environmental variation, namely resources and host population structure? (3) To what extent is parasite abundance driven by local factors or landscape-level patterns of parasite dispersal? (4) Is the uneven distribution of parasites driven more by traits of the first, second, or tertiary host? Using the model tapeworm system, S. solidus, this research develops and applies cutting-edge statistical and mathematical approaches and a global sensitivity analysis to large temporal and spatial datasets spanning multiple levels of biological organization. This project builds on our knowledge of the well-studied threespine stickleback host and filling in important missing information for the other two hosts in this system (loons and copepods). This research produces a general, yet mechanistic, modeling framework to better understand transmission in this system, as well as inform work with other complex life cycle parasites.This project is supported by the Division of Environmental Biology, Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, and Division of Mathematical Sciences.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.

寄生虫在太空中的分布往往不均匀，一些寄主种群的寄生虫很少，而另一些寄主种群则受到严重感染。这种模式很常见，但仍然知之甚少，并对准确预测和管理疾病构成相当大的障碍。对于具有复杂生命周期或在不同宿主物种之间移动的寄生虫尤其如此。这包括许多寄生虫（蠕虫），它们感染全世界20多亿人，并导致牲畜严重疾病，但历史上一直没有得到充分研究。该项目将经验数据与数学模型相结合，以了解和预测每种宿主物种的行为、免疫学和生态学如何影响寄生虫在空间和时间上的传播。本研究重点研究了淡水湖中感染食鱼鸟类（潜鸟）、桡足类和三刺鱼的绦虫系统。通过整合现场研究、实验室实验、遗传研究和三种宿主和寄生虫本身的数学模型，该项目提供了对复杂生命周期寄生虫传播的详细了解，并建立了一个可应用于其他寄生虫的建模工具包。为了分享这项工作，调查人员开展了一项艺术-科学合作，涉及土著艺术家和一名科学新闻系学生，以该项目为重点举办了一次巡回展览。研究也通过以课程为基础的本科研究经验、专注于艺术与科学之间联系的跨学科本科课程、高中暑期科学项目等方式纳入课堂，并通过出版的课程计划广泛提供。寄生虫传播是由生态、行为和免疫因素的复杂相互作用形成的，但我们对这些因素如何相互作用及其对疾病流行的相对影响的理解仍然是碎片化的。该项目开发了一个总体框架，根据经验数据，了解和预测这些不同的过程如何在多个宿主中运作，并塑造寄生虫在空间和时间上的传播和分布。这项工作解决了四个主要问题：(1)寄生虫暴露（剂量反应）与免疫对传播动力学的相对贡献是什么？(2)暴露和免疫对环境变化（即资源和宿主种群结构）有多敏感？(3)寄生虫的丰度在多大程度上受当地因素或景观水平的寄生虫传播模式的驱动？(4)寄生虫的不均匀分布更多是由第一、第二或第三寄主的特征驱动的吗？利用模型绦虫系统，S. solidus，本研究开发并应用了尖端的统计和数学方法以及对跨越多个生物组织水平的大型时空数据集的全球敏感性分析。该项目建立在我们对三刺棘鱼宿主的充分研究的基础上，并填补了该系统中其他两种宿主（潜水器和桡足类）的重要缺失信息。这项研究产生了一个通用的，但机械的建模框架，以更好地了解该系统中的传播，并为其他复杂生命周期寄生虫的工作提供信息。本项目由环境生物学部、综合生物系统学部和数学科学学部支持。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。