Predicting epidemic size and disease evolution in natural systems

环境变化通过许多不同的机制塑造了许多宿主-寄生虫系统中的疾病生态和进化。在宿主遗传学、寄生虫遗传学和环境条件方面，自然宿主-寄生虫种群的复杂性阻碍了我们预测疾病未来的能力。提高这种认识是至关重要的，因为气候变化正在导致更多的多变天气，这将影响我们预测流行病发生的时间和严重程度的能力。该项目将结合实地调查、半自然的户外实验和受控的实验室实验来收集数据并建立模型，以预测自然协同进化的宿主-寄生虫系统(甲壳纲大型甲壳动物及其杀菌细菌寄生虫巴氏杆菌)中的疾病。国家自然资源中心资助的斯特林户外疾病实验(SODE)是一个既定的长期项目，在多个流行病中跟踪自然协同进化的宿主-寄生虫系统的20个复制种群。寄主大型水蚤是一种淡水甲壳类动物，既可以有性繁殖，也可以无性繁殖，寄生虫巴氏杆菌是一种剧毒的环境传播细菌，可以使宿主绝育。在索德的第一年，每个种群都被播种了一套相同的寄主基因型和寄生虫传播孢子的剂量。SODE正在生成一个长期数据集，使我们能够剖析宿主遗传学、寄生虫遗传学和环境因素的贡献

Environmental change shapes disease ecology and evolution in numerous host-parasite systems through many different mechanisms. The complexity of natural host-parasite populations - in terms of host genetics, parasite genetics and environmental conditions - has hampered our ability to predict the future of disease. Improving this knowledge is of paramount importance, as climate change is causing more variable weather, which will impact on our ability to predict when epidemics occur and how severe they will be.This project will combine field surveys, semi-natural outdoor experiments, and controlled lab experiments to collect data and build models to predict disease in a naturally coevolving host-parasite system (the crustacean Daphnia magna and its sterilizing bacterial parasite Pasteuria ramosa).The NERC-funded Stirling Outdoor Disease Experiment (SODE) is an established long-term project where twenty replicate populations of a naturally coevolving host-parasite system are tracked across multiple epidemics. The host, Daphnia magna, is a freshwater crustacean that can reproduce both sexually and asexually, and the parasite, Pasteuriaramosa, is a highly virulent environmentally transmitted bacterium that sterilizes its hosts. In SODE's first year, each population was seeded with an identical suite of host genotypes and dose of parasite transmission spores. SODE is generating a long-term data set that allows us to dissect the contribution of host genetics, parasite genetics and ambient