EID Disease in complex communities how multi-host multi-pathogen intreactions

当代疾病生态学的基本挑战之一是理解 在由多种宿主和多种病毒组成的复杂群落中的感染动态 病原体自然界中的细菌暴露于不同病原体的“鸡尾酒”中，因此， 问题涉及共存病原体之间的相互作用如何影响疾病的严重程度， 病原体在宿主社区的传播。迄今为止，大多数研究都集中在一个单一的 水平，检查多重感染如何影响单个宿主病理学或使用 群体调查，以确定宿主群体内病原体共现的相关性。 这一重点是单一尺度（即，主机内与主机间）忽略了一个至关重要的 问题-也就是说，宿主内的病原体相互作用如何“扩大”，以影响- 宿主过程，如传播和疾病动态？该项目的主要目标是 了解三种致病病原体在不同生物学尺度上的相互作用 复杂性，包括宿主内、物种间和群落间的复杂性，联合收割机结合起来， 影响两栖动物的疾病动态，两栖动物是一组全球受威胁的脊椎动物。 该项目结合了湿地群落的横截面实地调查， 实验室和围隔实验，以确定（1）两栖类病原体如何在 在多个空间尺度（个体宿主、宿主物种、湿地）上的发生和强度 （2）每种病原体对宿主病理学的单独和联合影响， 病原菌侵染成功;（3）寄主和病原菌群落变异的净效应 病原体传播和宿主-病原体动力学的结构。一个随机的，基于模拟的 建模框架，专门针对个别主机，将用于解释 实验结果和链接场分布的病原体与潜在的机制。这 该项目的重点是三种病原体，这些病原体广泛涉及引起两栖类动物 病理学：壶菌属真菌Batrachochytrium dendrobatim，吸虫Ribeiroia 和病毒属蛙病毒。

One of the fundamental challenges in contemporary disease ecology involves understanding infection dynamics within complex communities composed of multiple hosts and multiple pathogens. Hosts in nature are exposed to a 'cocktail' of different pathogens, therefore a central question concerns how interactions between co-occurring pathogens affect disease severity and pathogen transmission in host communities. Most research to date has been focused at a single level, examining either how multiple infections influence individual host pathology or using population surveys to identify correlations in pathogen co-occurrence within a host population. This focus on single scales (i.e., within-host vs. between- host) neglects a critically important question - namely, how do pathogen interactions within hosts 'scale up' to influence between- host processes, such as transmission and disease dynamics? The primary goal of this project is to understand how interactions among three virulent pathogens at different scales of biological complexity, including within hosts, between species, and among communities, combine to influence disease dynamics in amphibians, a group of globally threatened vertebrates. This project combines cross-sectional field surveys of wetland communities with controlled laboratory and mesocosm experiments to determine (1) how amphibian pathogens co-vary in occurrence and intensity across multiple spatial scales (individual hosts, host species, wetland communities), (2) the individual and combined effects of each pathogen on host pathology and pathogen infection success, and (3) the net effects of variation in host and pathogen community structure for pathogen transmission and host-pathogen dynamics. A stochastic, simulation-based modeling framework, uniquely focused on individual hosts, will be used to interpret experimental results and link field distributions of pathogens with underlying mechanisms. This project focuses on three pathogens that have been widely implicated in causing amphibian pathology: the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the trematode Ribeiroia ondatrae, and the viral genus Ranavirus.