Emerging Infectious Diseases in Amphibians: from Individuals to Community Effects

了解新发传染病(EID)的生态和进化是更广泛地研究灭绝的关键。虽然确定灭绝的原因总是具有挑战性的，而且候选物种很少，但两栖动物似乎是一个理想的模型，因为越来越多的证据表明，我们正面临全球种群数量的下降，所有两栖动物物种中近10%的种群濒临灭绝，另有32%被归类为受威胁物种。在许多原因中，诸如RaaVirus等紧急传染病(EID)已被确定为造成大规模死亡的原因。在关于全球两栖动物数量下降的普遍辩论的背景下，我正在进行的研究计划的目标是调查这种疾病的生态和进化，并了解它如何导致病原体诱导的灭绝。此外，我认为这一研究体系是研究生态和进化过程之间的联系以及了解在不同组织水平上调节宿主-寄生虫共同进化结果的机制的理想方法。利用现场和实验室的观察和实验相结合的方法，并考虑到宿主-寄生虫进化生态学的现有知识，我有以下目标：1-环境异质性如何调节尖吻石蛾-RanaVirus的相互作用，以及这可能如何影响青蛙种群动态？2-寄生虫的传播如何与这个系统中的毒力联系起来，这可能如何影响宿主-寄生虫的相互作用？3-两栖动物群落变量(多样性，丰度...)这项研究的结果将被用来发展进化生态学的理论和经验框架，并为两栖动物种群的保护提供流行病学工具。

Understanding Emerging Infectious diseases (EIDs) ecology and evolution is a key to the more general investigations of extinction. While determining the cause of extinction is always challenging and candidate species are few, amphibian appear to be an ideal model as increasing evidence suggests that we are facing a global population decline with nearly 10% of the populations of all amphibian species close to extinction and a further 32% being classified as threatened. Among many causes, Emergent Infectious Diseases (EIDs) such as Ranavirus have been identified to be responsible for massive die-offs. In the context of the general debate over global amphibian population decline, the objective of my ongoing research program is to investigate the ecology and evolution of such disease and to understand how it can lead to pathogen-induced extinctions. Additionally, I consider this study system to be ideal to investigate questions with regards to the links between ecological and evolutionary processes and the understanding of mechanisms that modulate host-parasite coevolutionary outcomes at different level of organization. Using a combination of field and lab-based observations and experiments and considering the current knowledge on host-parasite evolutionary ecology, I have the following objectives:1-How does environmental heterogeneity modulate Lithobates pipiens-Ranavirus interactions, and how this may affect frog population dynamics?2-How parasite transmission is linked to virulence in this system and how this may influence host-parasite interactions?3-How amphibian community variables (diversity, abundance...) are influenced by parasite mediated interactions and vice-versa?The results from this research program will be used to develop the theoretical and empirical framework for evolutionary ecology as well as provide epidemiological tools for the conservation of amphibian populations.