FORECASTING LYME DISEASE RISK

预测莱姆病风险

• 批准号: 2672804
• 负责人: Richard Simon Ostfeld
• 金额: $ 8.11万
• 依托单位: INSTITUTE OF ECOSYSTEM STUDIES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-08-15 至 1999-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2672804
• 关键词: Aves; Borrelia; Ixodes; Lyme disease; Mammalia; Peromyscus; angiosperms; animal ecology; animal population density; arthropod borne communicable disease; communicable disease control; disease /disorder proneness /risk; disease outbreaks; disease reservoirs; epizootiology; field study; fluorescence microscopy; food chain; health behavior; host organism interaction; human ecology; public health; rural area; squirrel; statistics /biometry; vole

Currently, Lyme disease is growing in both number of cases and geographic distribution in the U.S. Because no vaccines currently are available for public distribution, prevention of Lyme disease has involved educating the public to reduce risk of exposure to tick bites. The proposed research will provide a foundation for further efforts at public education by increasing our ability to predict when and where infected ticks will be most abundant. This research involves new initiatives to understand relationships between tick hosts, ticks, and spirochetes, that strongly influence Lyme disease risk. We propose to test a series of specific hypotheses regarding the ecological determinants of distribution and Borrelia-infection rates of I. scapularis in a semirural area in Dutchess County, New York. We will expand upon ongoing studies of resource (including acorn) abundance, small mammal abundance and diversity, abundance and distribution of host-seeking and attached ticks, and tick infection rates in five distinct habitat types representing landscapes typical of the northeastern and upper midwestern U.S. We will conduct replicated acorn removal (in mast years) and acorn addition (in nonmast years) experiments to test the hypothesis that, in forests, acorn abundance in autumn determines density of larval ticks the following summer. To test the hypothesis that nymphal tick abundance and infection rates are determined by the community structure of vertebrate hosts, we will live trap and mist net virtually all mammalian and avian hosts within several habitat types. The habitat types are expected to differ in host community structure. By collecting fed ticks from a complete array of potential hosts, we will be able to relate the proportion of larvae feeding on reservoir-competent hosts to the infection rate of nymphs and adults the following year. We will also test the hypothesis that density-dependent dispersal by P. leucopus causes predictable shifts in the habitat distribution of ticks between the larval and nymphal stages. This will be accomplished by enlarging current trapping grids to encompass patch boundaries in order to capture and examine dispersing mice. Our data will be instrumental in devising host- management strategies for controlling Lyme disease. Our ultimate goal is to forecast in which habitat types and in which years humans will be at the greatest risk of exposure to bites from infected ticks, and hence to contracting Lyme disease. The ability to forecast Lyme disease risk will require an understanding of the ecological interactions between resources, tick hosts, and ticks. We expect three more years of study in our system will establish sufficient ecological knowledge to allow forecasting with high probability. This knowledge will be disseminated to public health professionals and others important in public education regarding Lyme disease. Moreover, we will test our model's prediction that high species diversity in the host community will reduce or eliminate risk of Lyme disease; these results can be applied to environmentally sound host-management. Our data for Dutchess County, NY, will be used to evaluate the emergence of the enzootic cycle in nonendemic areas surrounding our region.

目前，莱姆病在病例和地理上都在增长 在美国分发，因为目前没有疫苗可用于 公共分布，预防莱姆病已经涉及教育 公众降低暴露于tick虫的风险。拟议的研究 将为由 提高我们预测何时何地感染壁虱的能力 最丰富。这项研究涉及新举措以了解 tick式主机，tick和螺旋体之间的关系，这些关系强烈 影响莱姆病风险。 我们建议测试一系列有关 I的分布和漏浮球率的生态决定因素。 肩cap骨在纽约荷兰人县的半火车区域。我们将 扩大对资源（包括橡子）丰度的持续研究，小的 哺乳动物的丰富性和多样性，寻求宿主的丰度和分布 并附有tick虫，以及五个不同栖息地的壁虱感染率 代表东北和上部典型景观的类型 美国中西部，我们将进行复制的橡子去除（桅杆年） 和橡子添加（在非媒体年）实验以检验假设 在森林中，秋天的橡子丰度决定了幼虫的密度 下夏天勾选。 测试若虫tick的假设 丰度和感染率取决于社区结构 脊椎动物宿主，我们将活陷阱和雾网几乎所有哺乳动物 和鸟类托管在几种栖息地类型中。栖息地类型是 预计主机社区结构会有所不同。通过收集美联储 从一系列潜在的主机中，我们将能够将 幼虫的比例以储层能力的宿主为食 第二年的若虫和成人的速度。我们还将测试 假设密度依赖性链球菌的散布原因 幼虫之间壁虱的栖息地分布的可预测变化 和若虫阶段。这将通过扩大电流来实现 将网格捕获到包含补丁边界以捕获和 检查分散小鼠。 我们的数据将有助于设计主机 - 控制莱姆病的管理策略。 我们的最终目标是预测哪种栖息地类型以及几年 人类将面临感染的最大风险 tick虫，因此患有莱姆病。预测莱姆的能力 疾病风险将需要了解生态互动 在资源之间，滴答式主机和壁虱之间。我们期望再过三年 在我们系统中的研究将建立足够的生态知识 允许以高可能性进行预测。这些知识将是 传播给公共卫生专业人员和其他在公共中重要的 有关莱姆病的教育。而且，我们将测试模型的 预测主机社区中的高物种多样性将减少 或消除莱姆病的风险；这些结果可以应用于 环保的主机管理。我们在纽约州荷兰县的数据 将用于评估非流行周期的出现 我们地区周围的区域。