IMAGINE Collaborative Research: Linking individual variation in immunity and behavior to landscape patterns in disease risk using the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)

IMAGINE 合作研究：使用国家生态观测站网络 (NEON) 将免疫力和行为的个体差异与疾病风险的景观模式联系起来

• 批准号: 2110031
• 负责人: John Orrock
• 金额: $ 78.67万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-07-15 至 2026-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2110031&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: IMAGINE; Collaborative; Research; Linking; individual

Understanding the factors that reduce infections in animals is an essential step towards reducing human disease risk because an estimated 60% of pathogens that infect humans can also infect animals (including the virus that causes COVID-19). However, it is difficult to predict infectious disease risk in animal populations because it is not understood how changes in the quality of an animal’s environment (e.g., temperature, abundance of food) may change disease rates. This project will investigate how variation in habitat quality affects the ecological dynamics of Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in the US, affecting the health and well-being of over 300,000 people annually. Through a collaboration with the National Ecological Observatory Network, the research team will measure the effects of habitat quality on the behavioral and immune system traits of mice at 8 sites across the northeastern U.S. and develop statistical models to link these animal data to Lyme disease risk. This project will benefit society by improving our ability to identify the times and places where risk of Lyme disease exposure can be minimized, directly benefitting hundreds of thousands of people each year. Through outreach, the project will educate the public about the factors that affect infectious disease and provide significant opportunities for training of high-school students, undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs underrepresented in STEM fields.Many behavioral and immune system traits are sensitive to the environment. But the extent to which this variation drives infectious disease risk in nature remains obscure. For example, although it is known that particular rodent species are critical hosts of B. burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, it is unknown how the environment affects traits that influence disease risk. This research project will leverage the continental scale of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to quantify behavioral and immunological traits of two keystone rodent hosts for B. burgdorferi, a pathogen that affects over 300,000 people in the U.S. each year. This project tests the hypothesis that variation in the environment couples and decouples individual host traits, altering the abundance of competent hosts and driving the emergence of disease hot and cold spots. This project will quantify B. burgdorferi competence in two rodent species across 8 NEON sites over 3 years, and use statistical modeling to link individual variation in infection susceptibility to variation in the abiotic and biotic environment and hence variation in Lyme disease risk. The utility of this approach will be evaluated by using these models to forecast disease prevalence as a function of current climatic and habitat conditions at additional NEON sites in future years. Ultimately, the project will identify how organism-environment interactions drive the susceptibility of individual hosts to infection, and will also identify the level(s) of biological organization (e.g., individuals, populations, species) at which small changes have large consequences for increased disease risk. This award was co-funded by the Symbiosis, Infection and Immunity Program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems and the Macrosystems Biology and NEON Enabled Science Program in the Division of Environmental Biology.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.

了解减少动物感染的因素是降低人类疾病风险的重要一步，因为估计感染人类的​​病原体中有60％也会感染动物（包括导致COVID-19的病毒）。但是，很难预测动物种群中感染的疾病风险，因为尚不了解动物环境质量的变化（例如，温度，食物的抽象）可能会改变疾病率。该项目将调查栖息地质量的变化如何影响莱姆病的生态动态，莱姆病是美国最常见的媒介传播疾病，每年影响30万人的健康和福祉。通过与国家生态天文台网络的合作，研究小组将衡量栖息地质量对美国东北部8个地点小鼠行为和免疫系统特征的影响，并开发统计模型，将这些动物数据与莱姆病风险联系起来。该项目将通过提高我们确定可以最小化莱姆病风险的时间和地点的能力来使社会受益，从而直接受益于数十万人。通过宣传，该项目将教育公众有关影响传染病的因素，并为在STEM领域中培训高中生，本科生，研究生和博士后的培训提供了很大的机会。许多行为和免疫系统特质对环境敏感。但是这种变异导致自然界中传染病风险的程度仍然晦涩难懂。例如，尽管众所周知，特定的啮齿动物物种是莱姆病的灾难性药物B. burgdorferi的关键宿主，但尚不清楚环境如何影响影响疾病风险的特征。研究项目将利用国家生态观测网络（NEON）的连续规模来量化两种Keystone啮齿动物宿主的行为和免疫学特征，为B. burgdorferi量化，该病原体每年影响美国30万人。该项目检验了以下假设：环境中的变化伴侣和脱离单个宿主的特征，改变了胜任的宿主的丰富度，并推动了疾病热点的出现。该项目将在3年内量化两个霓虹灯部位的两个啮齿动物物种的B. burgdorferi能力，并使用统计模型将感染易感性的个体变异与非生物和比较性环境的变异以及莱姆病风险变化联系起来。该方法的实用性将通过使用这些模型来预测疾病患病率，这是未来几年在其他霓虹灯部位的当前杂物和栖息地条件的函数。最终，该项目将确定组织与环境的相互作用如何推动各个宿主感染的敏感性，并还将确定生物组织（例如，个体，人群，物种）的水平，而小变化对疾病风险的增加产生了很大的影响。该奖项是由共生，感染和免疫计划共同资助的，在整合有机体系统部以及宏观系统生物学和霓虹灯启用的科学计划中，该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过基金会的知识分子优点和广泛的影响来评估NSF的法定任务，并被认为是宝贵的支持。