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.

在许多生态系统中，病原体可能是未被认可的关键物种，尽管导致疾病的生物的微观大小，但仍会对其他物种和栖息地产生巨大影响。然而，疾病流行病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的复杂相互作用。在海洋中，了解这些各种影响如何相互作用以确定易感性和对疾病的韧性的知识不足，理解疾病暴发的理解受到了阻碍。该项目将社区和疾病生态学的研究与微生物基因组学，地理空间分析以及最先进的计算方法相结合，以对埃尔格拉斯（Eelgrass）浪费疾病的原因和后果的前所未有的计算方法，这是一种重要的植被类型，这是一种支持沿海和河口生态系统的重要植被类型。这项研究在理解海洋疾病的日益增长但不断增长的威胁方面的前沿，疾病生态如何与环境变化相互作用，以及它对依赖鳗鱼的广泛生态系统和沿海地区的广泛生态系统和沿海社区的后果，北美太平洋沿海的23度。该研究将为受威胁的海草生态系统提供更好的管理，这些生态系统提供重要服务，包括渔业栖息地，侵蚀控制，碳存储和捕获营养径流。这项研究将促进下一代的综合方法，包括高中生，本科生，研究生和研究后的研究，每个调查员的机构都将努力招募来自代表性不足的群体的参与者。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映射，专业和公民科学家在与全球海洋观察系统（Goos）的范围（GOOS）脱离海格范围内的贫困人士中的贫困中，对贫穷的人类的差异，将其与海洋疾病相协调有关，以对全球海洋的范围进行协调。宿主 - 疾病相互作用的多方面生态环境。该项目的总体目标是消除直接和间接互动的网络，通过这种相互作用，气候变化的气候介导了浮雕浪费疾病的流行率及其对受威胁但重要的浮雕生态系统的后果。该核心是对纬度和暴露于海洋的热梯度沿鳗草社区组成，微生物组和疾病患病率进行比较的，跨尺度的调查，为环境变化响应疾病动态的首次海岸范围。原位采样将与无人机系统（无人机）在景观量表处的鳗草动力学联系起来，以量化鳗草范围和栖息地质量的高分辨率变化。实验将测试多样化的生物界如何介导病原体对鳗鱼生态系统的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准，认为值得通过评估来获得支持。

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