A Novel Testing Paradigm to Identify and Manage Multiple Stressor Impacts on Wildlife

识别和管理对野生动物的多种压力源影响的新颖测试范式

• 批准号: NE/X015327/1
• 负责人: Claus Svendsen
• 金额: $ 40.17万
• 依托单位: UK CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FX015327%2F1
• 关键词: Novel; Testing; Paradigm; Identify; Manage

Biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate. Multiple stressors are driving many of these declines with freshwater (FW) ecosystems particularly impacted. Ephemeral FWs (e.g. marshes, ponds) are exceptionally biodiverse and highly exposed to varied environmental stressors but are generally overlooked within academia and regulation. Amphibians have been a major faunal component of these habitats for at least 350 million years, being highly evolved to these ecosystems. Amphibians and wetlands are some of the most highly threatened Phyla/ecosystems globally, with wetland health key to the climate crisis, due to the high methane levels emitted from human impacted systems. Using both field and laboratory approaches, here we will investigate the environmental stressor combinations driving negative impacts in amphibians (common frog, Rana temporaria) and seek to develop a biomonitoring approach to assess the health of these vital ecosystems. As amphibians are the most highly threatened vertebrate Phyla, this project is highly relevant to conservation priorities. General health, disease status, stress markers and global gene expression in wild and caged tadpoles will be measured. The use of toxicogenomics and alterations to physiology to assess impacts on tadpoles allows both the anchoring of molecular initiating events to downstream physiological endpoints and resulting adversity, as well as mapping these responses to stressor combinations. This mapping presents a highly novel approach, allowing the identification of specific stressors and their combinations that are driving negative impacts, and is widely applicable across biota. Catchment-scale eco-epidemiological studies between wild taxa and the presence/severity of stressors often rank pollution as amongst the most important variables driving negative effects in FWs. However, studies on effects of pollution at environmentally relevant levels and mixture combinations are scarce, particularly in the context of multiple stressors. Here pollutant mixture formulations will be based directly on measured levels in ephemeral FWs and combined with other ubiquitous stressors (salinity, heat wave and/or invasive crayfish - Pacifasticus leniusculus cue), all at environmentally relevant levels and combinations. These laboratory exposures will be highly novel and of vital importance to understand the true impacts of multiple stressors on iconic amphibian biota that inhabit vital ephemeral FWs. It will be tested how best to utilise data from single stressor exposures, to predict effects using theoretical models. For this, we will apply novel theoretical paradigms to the data - dominance (few stressors contribute disproportionately to observed effects) and burden (total stressor load determines effects) - which have huge potential for wide applicability for multi-stressor science. In contrast to the single-endpoint approach, here we propose to use ecological modelling to investigate effects on whole organisms and their populations in order to drastically improve the utility of these data for conservation. Finally, by transplanting spawn and sampling both caged and native tadpoles, the utility of naïve/locally adapted tadpoles as a biomonitoring tool to assess the health of FW wetlands will be assessed. This work will address an important gap in the literature between field-based catchment-level evidence demonstrating the importance of multiple stressors and the current limited laboratory-based evidence/understanding; as well as developing a new testing paradigm with practical application for conservation. The research team combines excellence in FW ecotoxicology, multiple stressors/mixture effect biology, FW ecology, ecological modelling, bioinformatics and chemistry needed for this project. In addition, the project partners and supporting organisations comprise a range of stakeholders that are focused on the health of FW ecosystems and reducing the impacts of pollution.

生物多样性正在以惊人的速度下降。多种压力因素正在推动许多这些下降，其中淡水生态系统受到的影响尤其严重。短暂的FW（如沼泽，池塘）是非常生物多样性和高度暴露于各种环境压力，但通常被忽视的学术界和监管。两栖动物是这些栖息地的主要动物组成部分，至少有3.5亿年，高度进化到这些生态系统。两栖动物和湿地是全球最受威胁的门/生态系统之一，由于人类影响的系统排放的甲烷水平很高，湿地健康是气候危机的关键。使用现场和实验室的方法，在这里，我们将调查驱动两栖动物（常见的青蛙，蛙temporaria）的负面影响的环境压力组合，并寻求开发一种生物监测方法来评估这些重要的生态系统的健康。由于两栖动物是最受威胁的脊椎动物门，这个项目是高度相关的保护优先事项。将测量野生和笼养蝌蚪的一般健康状况、疾病状态、应激标记和整体基因表达。使用毒理基因组学和改变生理学评估对蝌蚪的影响，允许锚定的分子启动事件下游生理终点和由此产生的逆境，以及映射这些反应的压力组合。这种映射提出了一种非常新颖的方法，允许识别特定的压力源及其组合，这些压力源及其组合正在推动负面影响，并广泛适用于整个生物群。流域规模的生态流行病学研究之间的野生类群和压力的存在/严重程度往往排名污染的最重要的变量之一，推动在FW的负面影响。然而，关于污染在环境相关水平和混合物组合方面的影响的研究很少，特别是在多种压力因素的情况下。在这里，污染物混合物配方将直接基于短暂的FW中的测量水平，并与其他普遍存在的压力源（盐度，热浪和/或入侵小龙虾- Pacifasticus leniusculus线索）相结合，所有这些都在环境相关的水平和组合。这些实验室暴露将是非常新颖的，对于了解多种压力源对栖息在重要的短暂FW中的标志性两栖动物生物群的真正影响至关重要。将测试如何最好地利用来自单一压力源暴露的数据，使用理论模型预测效果。为此，我们将应用新的理论范式的数据-优势（少数压力源不成比例地影响观察到的效果）和负担（总压力负荷决定效果）-这对多压力科学的广泛适用性具有巨大的潜力。与单终点方法相反，在这里，我们建议使用生态建模来调查对整个生物及其种群的影响，以大大提高这些数据的保护效用。最后，通过移植卵和采样笼中和本地蝌蚪，幼稚/当地适应的蝌蚪作为生物监测工具，以评估FW湿地的健康的效用将进行评估。这项工作将解决一个重要的差距，在文献中基于现场的流域级的证据证明了多种压力源和目前有限的实验室为基础的证据/理解的重要性，以及开发一个新的测试模式与实际应用的保护。该研究团队结合了该项目所需的FW生态毒理学，多种应激源/混合效应生物学，FW生态学，生态建模，生物信息学和化学方面的卓越成就。此外，项目合作伙伴和支持组织包括一系列关注FW生态系统健康和减少污染影响的利益相关者。