Dissertation Research: Natural and acquired immunity within Yellowstone's wolves: consequences for disease severity, survival, and reproduction

免疫系统在维持整体健康和控制寄生虫方面发挥着关键作用。虽然对免疫功能的投资可能会提高存活率，但也可能会以繁殖为代价，要么是因为资源有限，要么是因为免疫系统过度反应攻击身体。在这里，作者的目标是探索在野生灰狼种群中免疫投资、疾病严重程度、生存和繁殖之间关系的证据。1995年，灰狼被重新引入黄石国家公园，在这个种群中，研究人员研究了寄生虫感染的自然过程。这项研究表明，尽管无法控制感染会带来高昂的生存成本，但单个狼对感染犬瘟病毒和粪便的反应各不相同。这些变异都不能用年龄、性别和社会地位等寄主特征来解释。这个项目将检验这样一种假设，即免疫功能和生殖之间的权衡可以解释个体之间免疫变异的维持。免疫投资的几个指数(天然抗体、特异性抗体和总抗体)将被衡量为疾病严重程度和已知疾病暴发后的存活率的预测因子。这些信息将与生殖适合性相匹配，以测试免疫反应的增强是否以生殖为代价。这项工作将进一步检验特定的预测，即繁殖成本以减少产仔数量的形式发生，并且这些成本可以在疾病爆发期间以增加产仔存活率的形式抵消。这项研究的结果将加深我们对野生动物种群免疫功能变异维持机制的理解，这在保护生物学和野生动物管理中具有重要的应用。该项目将建立在一种野生食肉动物重新引入国家公园的丰富的、长期的公共数据集的基础上，并将进一步加深我们对这种标志性保护物种的驱动因素的理解。这项研究的结果将发布在公民科学网站上，并通过国家公园管理局的公开讲座传播给学校团体。这项研究还将扩大博士生的研究、培训和技能集。

The immune system plays a critical role in maintaining overall health and keeping parasites at bay. While investment in immune function may improve survival, it may also come at a cost to reproduction, either because of limited resources or an over-reactive immune system attacking the body. Here, the authors aim to explore the evidence for relationships between immune investment, disease severity, survival, and reproduction in a wild population of gray wolves. Gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995, and within this population, researchers have studied the natural process of parasite infections. This work has shown that individual wolves vary in their response to infection with canine distemper virus and sarcoptic mange, despite the high survival-costs associated with an inability to control infection. None of this variation is explained by host characteristics such as age, sex, and social status. This project will test the hypothesis that a tradeoff between immune function and reproduction explains the maintenance of immune variation among individuals. Several indices of immune investment (natural antibodies, specific antibodies, and total antibodies) will be measured as predictors of disease severity and survival through known disease outbreaks. This information will be matched to reproductive fitness in order to test whether increased immune responsiveness comes at a cost to reproduction. This work will further test the specific prediction that costs to reproduction occur in the form of decreased litter sizes, and that these costs may be offset during disease outbreaks in the form of increased litter survival. Results from this research will improve our understanding of the mechanisms by which variation in immune function is maintained in wildlife populations, which has important applications in conservation biology and wildlife management. The project will build on a rich, long-term public dataset on a wild carnivore being reintroduced to national parks, and will further our understanding of the drivers of an iconic conservation species. Results from this study will be published on a citizen science website, and disseminated via public lectures through the National Park Service and to school groups. This study will also expand the research training and skill sets of a doctoral student.