BEE: Eco-evolutionary dynamics of disease-induced apex predator declines

BEE：疾病引起的顶级捕食者下降的生态进化动力学

• 批准号: 2027446
• 负责人: Andrew Storfer
• 金额: $ 150万
• 依托单位: Washington State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2027446&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: BEE; Eco; evolutionary; dynamics; disease; BEE; Eco; evolutionary; dynamics; disease

This project will study how the spread of an infectious disease can affect the co-evolution of the pathogen and the host, and who those changes can create changes in the rest of the animal community. Emerging infectious diseases and the global loss of biodiversity are two leading challenges for the life sciences in the 21st century. Declines of the iconic Tasmanian devil in Australia represent an example of these two threats acting together to endanger a species. Additionally, as such large predators decline, the role of other species shifts in the food chain, which can lead to loss of biodiversity via secondary declines and extinctions of other species. These community changes can then feed back on the predator themselves, resulting in changes in developmental timing and reproduction. Thus, it is critical to study how losses of top predators lead to changes in food webs, population densities, and evolution of species with which they interact. Through outreach to the general public, this study will increase understanding of how infectious diseases affect biological communities and influence biodiversity. It will also provide training opportunities for US graduate students and post-doctoral scholars in an international setting.Tasmanian devils and their fatal transmissible cancer, devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), represents an ideal study system to elucidate the impacts of top predator losses on community dynamics. The east to west spread of DFTD provides a rare, natural experiment to test how temporal variation in extent of devil declines across Tasmania affects community dynamics. Devils are indeed community architects, the declines of which cause the direct effects of mesopredator release that then cascades through the food web to indirect secondary declines of native species. The research will bridge ecological and evolutionary theory to predict how co-evolutionary interactions of devils and DFTD will affect current and future devil population densities. These predictions will then be plugged into (structural equation) models that incorporate field studies of ecological interactions within the Tasmanian devil food web across the decline gradient. Feedbacks of these community-level changes on Tasmanian devil life history evolution will be evaluated with genomic study of the basis of a rapid developmental trajectory and precocial breeding in female devils. Evolutionary feedbacks on mesopredators and prey will be assessed using landscape genomics studies to test the influence of variation in devil density on gene flow and adaptive potential across multiple generations.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.

该项目将研究传染病的传播如何影响病原体和宿主的共同进化，以及这些变化如何在动物群体中造成变化。新兴的传染病和全球生物多样性丧失是21世纪生命科学的两个主要挑战。澳大利亚标志性的塔斯马尼亚魔鬼的下降是这两个威胁共同作用危害物种的一个例子。此外，随着如此大的捕食者的下降，其他物种在食物链中的作用可能会导致生物多样性因次要下降和其他物种的灭绝而失去生物多样性。然后，这些社区变化可以反馈捕食者本身，从而导致发育时机和繁殖的变化。因此，至关重要的是，研究顶级捕食者的损失如何导致食物网，人口密度和与之相互作用的物种的进化发生变化。通过向公众推广，这项研究将增加对传染病如何影响生物社区并影响生物多样性的理解。它还将为美国的研究生和博士后学者提供培训机会。Tasmanian魔鬼及其致命的可传染性癌症，魔鬼面部肿瘤疾病（DFTD），代表了阐明顶级捕食者对社区动力学的影响的理想研究系统。 DFTD的东到西传播提供了一个罕见的自然实验，以测试塔斯马尼亚州魔鬼下降程度的时间变化如何影响社区动态。魔鬼的确是社区建筑师，其下降导致中间人释放的直接影响，然后通过食物网层叠以间接的二次下降本地物种。该研究将桥接生态和进化论，以预测魔鬼和DFTD的共同进化相互作用将如何影响当前和未来的魔鬼人口密度。然后，这些预测将插入（结构方程式）模型，这些模型将塔斯马尼亚魔鬼食品网络中生态相互作用的现场研究纳入了下降梯度。这些社区级别对塔斯马尼亚魔鬼生命历史进化的反馈将通过基因组研究来评估女性魔鬼的快速发育轨迹和早熟繁殖的基础。将使用景观基因组学研究对中脑和猎物的进化反馈进行评估，以测试魔鬼密度对基因流量和多代基因流量和适应性潜力的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的智力优点和广泛的影响来评估CRITERIA的智力功能和广泛影响。