Are all hosts created equal? Transmission dynamics in a natural multi-host parasite community

所有主机都是平等的吗？

基本信息

批准号：
NE/I026367/1
负责人：
Amy Pedersen
金额：
$ 43.5万
依托单位：
University of Edinburgh
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2012
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2012 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FI026367%2F1
关键词：
hosts created equal Transmission dynamics

项目摘要

Many of the most pressing concerns about emerging infectious disease in humans (eg pandemic influenza, West Nile virus, Hantavirus) and wildlife (eg bovine TB in cattle and badgers, squirrel pox transmission from grey to red squirrels) arise from parasites moving from one host species to another. As such there is considerable interest in how the composition of possible hosts in a community affects whether a disease spreads or not. Each host species can differ in their susceptibility to the parasite, their social structure and/or behaviour, so that the composition of the host community plays a key role in determining why some parasites cause an epidemic (i.e HIV), while others don't (i.e. Ebola). To aid our understanding of these complex, real-world communities, several mathematical models have been developed which show that the contribution each host species makes to the parasite's ability to spread is fundamental in determining whether the disease persists, and the outcome of targeted control. To date, however, these theories have not been tested with actual data, meaning they largely remain abstract conceptual frameworks. In particular, it is not known whether the host species' contributions to disease spread can be determined solely from the number of infected individuals within each host species. This is important as most studies of parasites that infect multiple hosts are likely to be purely observational, because it is logistically or ethically unfeasible to conduct the necessary experiments. However, there may be general guidelines, based on fundamental aspects of host-parasite ecology that can be used to infer these host contributions to parasite transmission and persistence. For example, both the transmission biology of the parasite (ie how it moves from one host to another) and the way host species interact in the community (eg their movement patterns, habitat usage, resource competition etc) will determine how each host species contributes to parasite persistence. Clearly, there is a need to determine whether disease patterns that we see in nature, combined with a basic understanding of host-parasite biology, can be used to predict how parasites will respond to control efforts targeting one host species or another. We will use a highly novel combination of large-scale manipulation experiments and mathematical modelling to measure host species contributions to parasite transmission across a diverse, natural multi-host-multi-parasite community. Overall we will provide one of the most comprehensive views of how very different parasites, with different transmission modes, use multiple host species to persist, and the implications for how such parasites respond to targeted host treatment. Given the increasing concerns about emerging infectious diseases around the globe, it has never been more pressing to develop a genuine understanding of the factors affecting parasite invasion, transmission, persistence, and control. This project will be a major step in that direction.

许多最紧迫的担忧对人类的新兴传染病（例如大流行性流感，西尼罗河病毒，汉坦病毒）和野生动植物（例如，牛和badge的牛结核病，牛的牛TB，从灰色的红松鼠到红色松鼠的传播）来自寄生虫从一个宿主到另一种宿主的物种中出现。因此，人们对社区中可能的寄主的组成如何影响疾病是否传播有很大的兴趣。每个宿主物种对寄生虫的敏感性，其社会结构和/或行为的敏感性都有不同，因此，寄主社区的组成在确定为什么某些寄生虫引起流行病（即HIV）中起着关键作用，而其他寄生虫则没有（即埃博拉病毒）。为了帮助我们理解这些复杂的现实世界社区，已经开发了几种数学模型，这些模型表明，每个宿主物种对寄生虫传播的能力的贡献对于确定疾病是否持续存在和靶向控制的结果至关重要。但是，迄今为止，这些理论尚未通过实际数据进行测试，这在很大程度上仍然是抽象的概念框架。特别是，尚不清楚宿主物种对疾病传播的贡献是否仅能仅取决于每个宿主物种中受感染的个体的数量。这很重要，因为大多数感染多个宿主的寄生虫的研究可能纯粹是观察性的，因为进行必要的实验在逻辑或道德上是不可行的。但是，基于寄主 - 寄生虫生态学的基本方面，可能有一般指南，可以用来推断这些宿主对寄生虫传播和持久性的贡献。例如，寄生虫的传播生物学（即它如何从一个宿主移动到另一个宿主）和宿主物种在社区中的相互作用（例如它们的运动模式，栖息地使用，资源竞争等）都将决定每个宿主物种如何对寄生虫的持久性贡献。显然，有必要确定我们在自然界中看到的疾病模式是否加上对宿主 - 寄生物生物学的基本理解，可用于预测寄生虫如何应对针对一种宿主物种或另一种物种的控制努力。我们将使用大规模操纵实验和数学建模的高度新颖组合来测量宿主物种对多样化的自然多宿主 - 寄生虫社区的寄生虫传播的贡献。总体而言，我们将提供最全面的观点之一，即具有不同的传输模式，使用多种寄主物种持续存在，以及对此类寄生虫对目标宿主治疗的反应的影响。鉴于对全球新兴传染病的越来越担心，对影响寄生虫入侵，传播，持久性和控制的因素的真正理解从未如此紧迫。该项目将是朝这个方向迈出的重要一步。