Individuals, energetics and infectious disease

个体、能量学和传染病

• 批准号: RGPIN-2015-04327
• 负责人: Willis, Craig
• 金额: $ 2.91万
• 依托单位: University of Winnipeg
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=612902
• 关键词: Individuals; energetics; infectious; disease

Infectious diseases of wildlife are an increasing concern as global travel and trade affect pathogen dispersal, and environmental change affects host susceptibility. There is growing realization that pathogens can cause species extinctions and loss of biodiversity and growing appreciation that wildlife diseases are relevant to human public health. Most recent emerging infectious diseases of humans (e.g., SARS, Hendra, Nipah, Marburg, Ebola) appear to have arisen when wildlife, specifically bats, were forced into contact with people due to human development. In North America, hibernating bats also face an urgent conservation threat from the novel fungal disease white-nose syndrome. Despite ecological, economic, public health and conservation implications of wildlife pathogens, we have limited experimental data about host-pathogen dynamics for most wildlife diseases. Therefore, over the long-term, I aim to test a broad hypothesis with theoretical but little experimental support: behavioural and physiological variation among individuals, social groups and populations of hosts affects host-pathogen dynamics and pathogen impacts. My short-term objectives are to use social species of bats to test three predictions arising from this hypothesis: (1) At the individual-scale, personality, and energetics affect individual risk of acquiring and spreading pathogens; (2) At the scale of social groups, personality composition of groups, and environmental characteristics (e.g., habitat quality, weather, climate) affect transmission via their influence on social dynamics; and (3) At the landscape scale, population and community characteristics (e.g., host density and genetic structure, host and parasite diversity) affect pathogen dynamics and disease impacts. Two key innovations underpin this proposal. First is our potential to manipulate social dynamics, energetic state and group composition of bats experimentally in large flight enclosures to assess how attributes of individuals and groups affect rates of pathogen invasion and transmission. Importantly, I will base experimental manipulations on real-world environmental changes. For example, climate change is likely to affect energetic status and use of torpor in heterotherms and urban and industrial development are likely to alter habitat in ways that affect social dynamics. Our experiments will imitate these changes. Second, is our preparedness for the imminent invasion of a wildlife pathogen causing massive population declines. To date we have marked over 10,000 free-ranging bats with passive transponders in central Canada. We will monitor arrival and departure of these animals at 10 hibernacula across the region, providing a unique opportunity to assess the role of host and environmental characteristics on pre- and post-infection mortality for a disease of tremendous conservation significance.

由于全球旅行和贸易影响病原体的传播，环境变化影响宿主的易感性，野生动物的传染病日益受到关注。人们日益认识到病原体可导致物种灭绝和生物多样性丧失，并日益认识到野生动物疾病与人类公共健康有关。最近出现的人类传染病（例如，SARS、亨德拉病毒、尼帕病毒、马尔堡病毒、埃博拉病毒）似乎是在野生动物，特别是蝙蝠，由于人类的发展被迫与人类接触时出现的。在北美，冬眠的蝙蝠也面临着来自新真菌疾病白鼻综合征的紧迫保护威胁。尽管野生动物病原体的生态，经济，公共卫生和保护的影响，我们有有限的实验数据宿主病原体动力学的大多数野生动物疾病。因此，从长远来看，我的目标是测试一个广泛的假设，理论上，但很少有实验支持：行为和生理变化之间的个人，社会群体和人口的主机影响主机病原体的动态和病原体的影响。我的短期目标是使用蝙蝠的社会物种来测试由这一假设产生的三个预测：（1）在个人规模上，个性和能量影响个体获得和传播病原体的风险;（2）在社会群体的规模上，群体的个性组成和环境特征（例如，栖息地质量、天气、气候）通过它们对社会动态的影响而影响传播;以及（3）在景观尺度上，人口和群落特征（例如，宿主密度和遗传结构、宿主和寄生虫多样性）影响病原体动态和疾病影响。两个关键的创新支撑了这一提议。首先是我们的潜力，操纵社会动态，精力充沛的状态和组组成的蝙蝠实验在大型飞行外壳，以评估个人和群体的属性如何影响病原体入侵和传播的速度。重要的是，我将根据现实世界的环境变化进行实验操作。例如，气候变化可能会影响到异温动物的活力状态和休眠状态，城市和工业发展可能会改变生境，从而影响到社会动态。我们的实验将模仿这些变化。第二，是我们为即将到来的野生动物病原体入侵做好准备，这种病原体会导致大规模的人口下降。到目前为止，我们已经在加拿大中部用被动应答器标记了10，000多只自由活动的蝙蝠。我们将监测这些动物在整个地区的10个hibernacula的到来和离开，提供了一个独特的机会，以评估宿主和环境特征对感染前和感染后死亡率的作用，这种疾病具有巨大的保护意义。