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/X015270/1
• 负责人: Frances Orton
• 金额: $ 74.94万
• 依托单位: Heriot-Watt University
• 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%2FX015270%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。多种压力因素导致了许多此类下降，其中淡水（FW）生态系统受到的影响尤其严重。短暂的 FW（例如沼泽、池塘）具有异常的生物多样性，并且高度暴露于各种环境压力源，但在学术界和监管机构中通常被忽视。至少 3.5 亿年来，两栖动物一直是这些栖息地的主要动物组成部分，并且经过高度进化以适应这些生态系统。两栖动物和湿地是全球受威胁最严重的门类/生态系统之一，由于受人类影响的系统排放的甲烷含量很高，湿地健康是气候危机的关键。我们将利用现场和实验室方法，研究对两栖动物（青蛙、林蛙）造成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生态系统的健康状况。由于两栖动物是受威胁最严重的脊椎动物门，因此该项目与保护优先事项高度相关。将测量野生和笼养蝌蚪的一般健康状况、疾病状况、应激标记和整体基因表达。使用毒物基因组学和生理学改变来评估对蝌蚪的影响，既可以将分子起始事件锚定到下游生理终点和由此产生的逆境，也可以将这些反应映射到应激源组合。这种映射提供了一种非常新颖的方法，可以识别导致负面影响的特定压力源及其组合，并且广泛适用于整个生物群。野生类群与压力源的存在/严重程度之间的流域规模生态流行病学研究通常将污染列为导致野生动物负面影响的最重要变量之一。然而，关于环境相关水平和混合物组合的污染影响的研究很少，特别是在多种压力源的背景下。这里的污染物混合物配方将直接基于短暂 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 提示）相结合，所有这些都处于环境相关水平和组合。这些实验室暴露将是非常新颖的，对于了解多种压力源对居住在重要的短暂 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单一压力源暴露的数据，以使用理论模型预测效果。为此，我们将把新颖的理论范式应用于数据——主导（很少有压力源对观察到的效果做出不成比例的贡献）和负担（总压力源负荷决定效果）——这对于多压力源科学具有广泛适用性的巨大潜力。与单端点方法相反，我们建议使用生态模型来研究对整个生物体及其种群的影响，以大幅提高这些数据在保护方面的效用。最后，通过移植菌种并对笼养蝌蚪和本地蝌蚪进行采样，将评估幼稚/本地适应蝌蚪作为评估 FW 湿地健康状况的生物监测工具的效用。这项工作将解决文献中证明多种压力源重要性的实地流域证据与当前有限的基于实验室的证据/理解之间的重要差距；以及开发一种具有实际保护应用的新测试范例。该研究团队结合了该项目所需的 FW 生态毒理学、多重应激/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知识。此外，项目合作伙伴和支持组织由一系列关注 FW 生态系统健康和减少污染影响的利益相关者组成。