Thermal Community Ecology of Disease

在下一个世纪，世界许多地区的气候和气温将加速变化。除其他影响外，热环境的改变可能会影响传染病的爆发，导致植物、动物和人感染的风险增加或减少。温度通常通过温度依赖性生长速率和疾病媒介的其他生物学特性（例如，蚊子），宿主物种（例如，人类、作物或野生动物），以及寄生虫或病原体本身（例如，细菌或真菌）。然而，疾病往往是由其他物种超越这三个主机，媒介和寄生虫。例如，捕食者通常会降低其猎物种群的疾病严重程度，而相互竞争的物种经常会干扰彼此寄生虫的传播。此外，不同的热环境往往有利于一些物种比其他-例如，捕食者比猎物或一个竞争对手比另一个。因此，温度的变化可能会以释放或抑制传染病的方式重新组装生态群落。这项研究的结果将通过模型和实验来证明，温度的变化如何通过这些生态途径影响传染病的结果。该项目还将支持外联活动，通过为本科生和研究生提供机会，使当地社区参与并扩大对科学的参与。该项目的目标是了解温度在包括宿主、寄生虫、资源、竞争者和捕食者在内的生态群落中塑造传染病动态的方式。实验的中心是浮游动物宿主、真菌寄生虫和鱼类捕食者的模型系统。该研究系统中以前的实验表明，温暖的温度增加了最低限度社区（只有宿主和寄生虫）疾病爆发的严重程度，但来自湖泊的现场数据表明，温暖的温度可能会降低更复杂和现实社区的疾病严重程度。将获得所有相关物种的相关性状的热性能曲线，并用于参数化一般机理模型。然后，将通过跨越温度梯度进行的独立的多代中型生态系统实验来测试参数化模型。这两个模型和围隔实验的设计将反映日益复杂的社区，包括：i）只有主机，资源和寄生虫，ii）添加竞争对手，iii）添加捕食者，iv）添加竞争对手和捕食者。模型和实验的整合将为一个新领域奠定坚实的基础，该领域致力于研究温度对生态群落中疾病动力学的影响：疾病的热群落生态学。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Over the next century, many parts of the world will experience accelerated rates of change in climate and temperature. Among other impacts, altered thermal environments are likely to affect outbreaks of infectious disease, resulting in elevated or diminished risk of infection for plants, animals, and people. Temperature is typically linked to patterns of infectious disease through temperature-dependent growth rates and other biological traits of disease vectors (e.g., mosquitos), host species (e.g., humans, crops, or wildlife), and the parasites or pathogens themselves (e.g., bacteria or fungi). However, disease is often shaped by other species beyond this trifecta of hosts, vectors, and parasites. For example, predators often reduce disease severity in populations of their prey, and species that compete against each other frequently interfere with the transmission of each other’s parasites. Moreover, different thermal environments often favor some species over others – for example, predators over prey or one competitor over another. Thus, changes in temperature could re-assemble ecological communities in ways that unleash or inhibit infectious disease. Results of this research will demonstrate, with both models and experiments, how variation in temperature shapes infectious disease outcomes through these ecological pathways. This project will also support outreach events that engage the local community and broaden participation in science by providing opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. The goal of this project is to understand the ways in which temperature shapes infectious disease dynamics in ecological communities that include hosts, parasites, resources, competitors, and predators. The experiments center on a model system of zooplankton hosts, fungal parasites, and fish predators. Previous experiments in this study system have shown that warmer temperature increases the severity of disease outbreaks in minimalistic communities (just hosts and parasites), but field data from lakes suggests that warmer temperature might decrease disease severity in more complex and realistic communities. Thermal performance curves of relevant traits will be obtained for all species involved and used to parameterize general mechanistic models. Parameterized models will then be tested with independent multi-generational mesocosm experiments conducted across thermal gradients. Both models and mesocosm experiments will be designed to reflect increasingly complex communities, including: i) only hosts, resources, and parasites, ii) adding a competitor, iii) adding a predator, and iv) adding both competitor and predator. The integration of models and experiments will establish robust foundations for a new field that grapples with effects of temperature on disease dynamics in ecological communities: the thermal community ecology of disease.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.