BRC-BIO - Expanding the ‘community’ in Community Genetics: Infracommunity genomics of duck symbionts to determine the eco-evolutionary factors underpinning holobiont evolution.

BRC-BIO - 扩展群落遗传学中的“群落”：鸭共生体的群落下基因组学，以确定支撑全生物进化的生态进化因素。

• 批准号: 2218190
• 负责人: Erika Ebbs
• 金额: $ 49.12万
• 依托单位: SUNY College at Purchase
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-15 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2218190&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: BRC; BIO; Expanding; community; Community

How host-parasite interactions are maintained over ecological time and evolutionary time (i.e. many generations) is a significant biological question, with real-world applications in medicine, public health, and conservation. It is often overlooked, though, that a single host can contain a diverse community (i.e. infracommunity) of parasites.. The proposed research focuses on duck hosts and seeks to understand their parasite infracommunity structure and predictability. Ducks transmit several diseases of human importance, including Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) and Human Cercarial Dermatitis (HCD). As a group, ducks can be divided based on ecological traits (habitat selection, feeding behaviors) into two groupings, dabbling and diving ducks. Prior studies have suggested that dabbling ducks may support a higher rate of transmission of AIV and HCD. This work will characterize infracommunities of four dabbling and four diving duck species within the Eastern USA, to determine if infracommunities are specific to host species and/or ecological group. We will look deeply into the genetics of recovered parasite populations to determine if host species and/or ecological group help explain critical public health parameters, such has higher rates of transmission. Human-induced environmental change has resulted in significant changes to duck populations, such that some species are thriving in altered habitats, and others are in decline. There is thus an urgency to understand the ecology and evolution of duck parasite infracommunities to better model diseases such as AIV and HCD in a changing world. Within an individual host, a community of symbionts (infracommunity) assembles in response to both ecological and evolutionary processes. Does the shared host environment act in a concerted way to shape the structure, assembly, and microevolution of infracommunities? The proposed research takes a community genetics approach to provide robust insights into the evolutionary processes within and across species of a shared host environment. This work will investigate the helminth (parasitic worms) and viral communities of eight duck species, which can be divided into two distinct ecological groups (dabbling vs. diving species) based on host-traits. The proposed research will use long-read Oxford Nanopore Sequencing to 1) characterize infracommunity structure across hosts and ecological groups and 2) compare population genetic structure and diversity of recovered core taxa (i.e. 70% prevalence). Merging community ecology and population genetics will help uncover the ecological determinants of infracommunity assembly, microevolution and ultimately provide insights into the evolution of the hologenome. Prior work with both helminths (Trematoda: Trichobilharzia) and Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) have shown higher prevalence, genetic diversity, and larger effective sizes are associated with dabblers, suggesting host-traits shape infracommunity assembly and within-host microevolutionary patterns. Understanding the predictability and taxonomic scalability of infracommunity assembly, and identifying what ecological factors support transmission, could improve our ability to model zoonotic waterborne diseases associated with waterfowl.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.

宿主-寄生虫相互作用如何在生态时间和进化时间（即许多代）内维持是一个重要的生物学问题，在医学，公共卫生和保护方面具有现实应用。然而，经常被忽视的是，单一宿主可以包含不同的寄生虫群落（即infractiity）。拟议的研究重点是鸭宿主，并试图了解他们的寄生虫infractiity结构和可预测性。鸭传播几种对人类重要的疾病，包括禽流感病毒（AIV）和人类尾蚴性皮炎（HCD）。作为一个群体，鸭类可以根据生态特征（栖息地选择，摄食行为）分为两类，潜水鸭和潜水鸭。先前的研究表明，鸭子可能会支持AIV和HCD的更高传播率。这项工作将描述在美国东部的四个dabbling和四个潜水鸭种infractiities，以确定infractiities是特定的宿主物种和/或生态组。我们将深入研究回收的寄生虫种群的遗传学，以确定宿主物种和/或生态群体是否有助于解释关键的公共卫生参数，例如具有更高的传播率。人类引起的环境变化导致了鸭子种群的显著变化，例如一些物种在改变的栖息地中茁壮成长，而另一些则在下降。因此，迫切需要了解鸭寄生虫infractionities的生态和进化，以更好地模拟疾病，如AIV和HCD在不断变化的世界。 在一个单独的主机内，共生体（infractious）的社区聚集在生态和进化过程的反应。共享的宿主环境是否以协调一致的方式塑造了infractiles的结构、组装和微进化？拟议的研究采用社区遗传学方法，为共享宿主环境的物种内和物种间的进化过程提供强有力的见解。这项工作将调查8种鸭的蠕虫（寄生虫）和病毒群落，根据宿主特征，这些鸭可以分为两个不同的生态组（潜水种和潜水种）。拟议的研究将使用长读牛津纳米孔测序来1）表征宿主和生态组之间的infractiity结构，2）比较恢复的核心分类群的种群遗传结构和多样性（即70%的患病率）。将群落生态学和种群遗传学相结合，将有助于揭示群体内组装、微进化的生态决定因素，并最终为全面基因组的进化提供见解。先前的工作与蠕虫（吸虫类：毛毕吸虫）和禽流感病毒（AIV）已显示较高的患病率，遗传多样性和较大的有效尺寸与dabblers，这表明主机性状形状infractiity大会和主机内的微进化模式。了解infractionity组装的可预测性和分类学可扩展性，并确定哪些生态因素支持传输，可以提高我们的能力，以模拟与水禽相关的人畜共患水传播疾病。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。