LTREB: Saurian Malaria: Long-Term Study of Prevalence, Life Histories, and Gametocyte Sex Ratio

0089096 schallltreb项目将继续对蜥蜴疟疾寄生虫的生态学和进化生物学进行长期研究。这些研究在加利福尼亚和加勒比海地区进行。在过去的9到22年里，人们一直在研究这些系统。将进行三项相互交织的研究，这些研究都依赖于研究期间获得的长期数据和血液样本。第一项研究将解决寄生虫流行问题。所有四个地点的流行模式都不符合疟疾标准流行病学模型的预测。这些差异可以用生境异质性假说来解释。第二项研究侧重于生活史特征。所有四种蜥蜴的感染在它们所有的生活史特征上都有很大的不同。在这种情况下，两个性状将研究最大寄生虫血症和配子体的第一次生产。克隆多样性和胁迫假设将通过额外的长期数据进行验证。最后，该项目将评估配子体性别比例。本地配偶竞争假说预测，感染中的配子体性别比例将取决于这些感染的遗传多样性。与这一假设相关的两个机制将被研究。这三个重点将扩大我们对宿主-寄生虫生态学时空动态的理解。该项目的结果对了解影响动物种群（包括人类）的新发传染病的自然历史和生态学具有直接和重要的意义。

0089096SchallThis LTREB project will continue long-term studies on the ecology and evolutionary biology of malaria parasites of lizards. These studies take place at sites in California and the Caribbean. The systems have been under study for the past 9 to 22 years. Three interwoven studies will be pursued that all depend on the long-term data and blood samples obtained during the study. The first study will address parasite prevalence. Prevalence patterns at all four sites do not follow predictions emerging from standard epidemiological models for malaria. These differences are explained by the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis. The second study focuses on life-history traits. Infections in all four lizard species vary significantly in all their life history traits. In this case, two traits will be studied maximum parasitemia and first production of gametocytes. The clonal diversity and stress hypotheses will be tested with additional long-term data. Finally, the project will assess gametocyte sex ratio. The local mate competition hypothesis predicts that gametocyte sex ratios within infections will depend on the genetic diversity of those infections. Two mechanisms related to this hypothesis will be investigated. Together these three foci will expand our understanding of the spatial and temporal dynamics of host-parasite ecology. Results from this project have direct and important implications for understanding the natural history and ecology of emerging infectious diseases that affect animal populations, including humans.