Collaborative Research: The role of a keystone pathogen in the geographic and local-scale ecology of eelgrass decline in the eastern Pacific

合作研究：关键病原体在东太平洋鳗草衰退的地理和局部生态学中的作用

• 批准号: 1829890
• 负责人: Timothy Hawthorne
• 金额: $ 31.9万
• 依托单位: The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1829890&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; role; keystone; pathogen

Pathogens may be unrecognized key species in many ecosystems, causing massive impacts on other species and habitats despite the microscopic size of disease-causing organisms. Yet the triggers to disease epidemics likely involve complex interactions among changing environmental conditions and associated biological communities. In the ocean, understanding disease outbreaks has been hindered by inadequate knowledge of how these various influences interact to determine susceptibility and resilience to disease. This project integrates research in community and disease ecology with microbial genomics, geospatial analysis, and state-of-the-art computational approaches toward an unprecedented understanding of the causes and consequences of wasting disease in eelgrass, an important vegetation type supporting coastal and estuarine ecosystems throughout the northern hemisphere. The research advances frontiers in understanding the growing but poorly appreciated threat of marine diseases, how disease ecology interacts with environmental change, and its consequences for the extensive ecosystems and coastal communities that depend on eelgrass, across 23 degrees of latitude along the Pacific coast of North America. The research will inform better management of threatened seagrass ecosystems, which provide important services including fisheries habitat, erosion control, carbon storage, and capture of nutrient runoff. The research will foster integrative approaches in the next generation, including high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs working on the project, and each investigator's institution will work to recruit participants from under-represented groups. Best practices developed under this award, including the Eelisa disease app and drone mapping, will be disseminated for broader surveillance of seagrass disease and coastal habitat quality by both professional and citizen scientists in coordination with the Global Ocean Observing System's (GOOS) develpoment of seagrass extent as an Essential Ocean Variable.The triggers to marine disease epidemics are likely complex, and progress in understanding them has been hindered by a poor understanding of the multifaceted ecological context of the host-disease interaction. This project's overarching goal is to disentangle the web of direct and indirect interactions by which changing climate mediates prevalence of eelgrass wasting disease, and its consequences for threatened but important eelgrass ecosystems. The centerpiece is a comparative, cross-scale survey of eelgrass community composition, microbiome, and disease prevalence along thermal gradients of latitude and exposure to the ocean, providing the first coast-wide picture of disease dynamics in response to environmental change. In situ sampling will be linked to dynamics of eelgrass at landscape scales using unmanned aerial systems (drones) to quantify high-resolution changes in eelgrass extent and habitat quality. Experiments will test how the diverse biological community mediates impacts of the pathogen on eelgrass ecosystems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

病原体可能是许多生态系统中未被识别的关键物种，尽管致病生物体的尺寸很小，但对其他物种和栖息地造成了巨大影响。然而，疾病流行的触发因素可能涉及不断变化的环境条件和相关生物群落之间复杂的相互作用。在海洋中，由于对这些不同影响如何相互作用以确定疾病的易感性和恢复力的了解不足，对疾病爆发的了解受到了阻碍。该项目将群落和疾病生态学研究与微生物基因组学、地理空间分析和最先进的计算方法相结合，以前所未有地了解鳗草消耗性疾病的原因和后果，鳗草是支持沿海和河口生态系统的重要植被类型整个北半球。该研究在理解海洋疾病日益严重但未被充分认识的威胁、疾病生态如何与环境变化相互作用及其对北太平洋沿岸纬度23度范围内依赖鳗草的广泛生态系统和沿海群落的影响方面取得了前沿进展。美国。该研究将为更好地管理受威胁的海草生态系统提供信息，该生态系统提供重要的服务，包括渔业栖息地、侵蚀控制、碳储存和营养物径流捕获。该研究将促进下一代的综合方法，包括参与该项目的高中生、本科生、研究生和博士后，每个研究人员所在的机构将努力从代表性不足的群体中招募参与者。根据该奖项开发的最佳实践，包括 Eelisa 疾病应用程序和无人机测绘，将由专业和公民科学家与全球海洋观测系统 (GOOS) 的海草范围开发协调，进行传播，以便更广泛地监测海草疾病和沿海栖息地质量作为重要的海洋变量。海洋疾病流行的触发因素可能很复杂，并且由于对宿主与疾病相互作用的多方面生态环境了解不足，阻碍了对它们的理解进展。该项目的总体目标是理清直接和间接相互作用的网络，气候变化通过这种相互作用介导了鳗草消耗病的流行，及其对受到威胁但重要的鳗草生态系统的影响。该项目的核心内容是对鳗草群落组成、微生物组和沿纬度热梯度和暴露于海洋的疾病患病率进行比较、跨尺度调查，提供了第一张全海岸范围的疾病动态图以应对环境变化。现场采样将利用无人机系统与景观尺度的鳗草动态联系起来，以量化鳗草范围和栖息地质量的高分辨率变化。实验将测试不同的生物群落如何介导病原体对鳗草生态系统的影响。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Disease surveillance by artificial intelligence links eelgrass wasting disease to ocean warming across latitudes

• DOI: 10.1002/lno.12152
• 发表时间: 2022-05-27
• 期刊: LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY
• 影响因子: 4.5
• 作者: Aoki, Lillian R.;Rappazzo, Brendan;Harvell, C. Drew
• 通讯作者: Harvell, C. Drew

Using Object-Oriented Classification for Coastal Management in the East Central Coast of Florida: A Quantitative Comparison between UAV, Satellite, and Aerial Data

• DOI: 10.3390/drones3030060
• 发表时间: 2019-07
• 期刊: Drones
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Bo Yang;Timothy L. Hawthorne;Hannah R. Torres;M. Feinman

Developing an Introductory UAV/Drone Mapping Training Program for Seagrass Monitoring and Research

制定用于海草监测和研究的入门级无人机/无人机测绘培训计划

• DOI: 10.3390/drones4040070
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Drones
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Yang, Bo;Hawthorne, Timothy L.;Hessing-Lewis, Margot;Duffy, Emmett J.;Reshitnyk, Luba Y.;Feinman, Michael;Searson, Hunter
• 通讯作者: Searson, Hunter