A Novel Testing Paradigm to Identify and Manage Multiple Stressor Impacts on Wildlife

识别和管理对野生动物的多种压力源影响的新颖测试范式

• 批准号: NE/X015270/1
• 负责人: Frances Orton
• 金额: $ 74.94万
• 依托单位: Heriot-Watt University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FX015270%2F1
• 关键词: Novel; Testing; Paradigm; Identify; Manage

Biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate. Multiple stressors are driving many of these declines with freshwater (FW) ecosystems particularly impacted. Ephemeral FWs (e.g. marshes, ponds) are exceptionally biodiverse and highly exposed to varied environmental stressors but are generally overlooked within academia and regulation. Amphibians have been a major faunal component of these habitats for at least 350 million years, being highly evolved to these ecosystems. Amphibians and wetlands are some of the most highly threatened Phyla/ecosystems globally, with wetland health key to the climate crisis, due to the high methane levels emitted from human impacted systems. Using both field and laboratory approaches, here we will investigate the environmental stressor combinations driving negative impacts in amphibians (common frog, Rana temporaria) and seek to develop a biomonitoring approach to assess the health of these vital ecosystems. As amphibians are the most highly threatened vertebrate Phyla, this project is highly relevant to conservation priorities. General health, disease status, stress markers and global gene expression in wild and caged tadpoles will be measured. The use of toxicogenomics and alterations to physiology to assess impacts on tadpoles allows both the anchoring of molecular initiating events to downstream physiological endpoints and resulting adversity, as well as mapping these responses to stressor combinations. This mapping presents a highly novel approach, allowing the identification of specific stressors and their combinations that are driving negative impacts, and is widely applicable across biota. Catchment-scale eco-epidemiological studies between wild taxa and the presence/severity of stressors often rank pollution as amongst the most important variables driving negative effects in FWs. However, studies on effects of pollution at environmentally relevant levels and mixture combinations are scarce, particularly in the context of multiple stressors. Here pollutant mixture formulations will be based directly on measured levels in ephemeral FWs and combined with other ubiquitous stressors (salinity, heat wave and/or invasive crayfish - Pacifasticus leniusculus cue), all at environmentally relevant levels and combinations. These laboratory exposures will be highly novel and of vital importance to understand the true impacts of multiple stressors on iconic amphibian biota that inhabit vital ephemeral FWs. It will be tested how best to utilise data from single stressor exposures, to predict effects using theoretical models. For this, we will apply novel theoretical paradigms to the data - dominance (few stressors contribute disproportionately to observed effects) and burden (total stressor load determines effects) - which have huge potential for wide applicability for multi-stressor science. In contrast to the single-endpoint approach, here we propose to use ecological modelling to investigate effects on whole organisms and their populations in order to drastically improve the utility of these data for conservation. Finally, by transplanting spawn and sampling both caged and native tadpoles, the utility of naïve/locally adapted tadpoles as a biomonitoring tool to assess the health of FW wetlands will be assessed. This work will address an important gap in the literature between field-based catchment-level evidence demonstrating the importance of multiple stressors and the current limited laboratory-based evidence/understanding; as well as developing a new testing paradigm with practical application for conservation. The research team combines excellence in FW ecotoxicology, multiple stressors/mixture effect biology, FW ecology, ecological modelling, bioinformatics and chemistry needed for this project. In addition, the project partners and supporting organisations comprise a range of stakeholders that are focused on the health of FW ecosystems and reducing the impacts of pollution.

生物多样性正在以惊人的速度下降。多种压力因素正在导致这些下降，其中淡水（FW）生态系统（例如沼泽、池塘）受到的影响尤其严重，并且高度暴露于各种环境压力因素下，但在学术界和学术界普遍被忽视。至少 3.5 亿年来，两栖动物一直是这些栖息地的主要动物组成部分，并高度进化到这些两栖动物和湿地。湿地是全球受威胁最严重的生态系统之一，由于受人类影响的系统排放的甲烷含量很高，湿地健康是气候危机的关键，我们将使用现场和实验室方法研究导致负面影响的环境压力源组合。两栖动物（普通青蛙、林蛙）的影响，并寻求开发一种生物监测方法来评估这些重要生态系统的健康状况，因为两栖动物是受威胁最严重的脊椎动物门。该项目与保护重点高度相关。将测量野生和笼养蝌蚪的总体健康状况、疾病状况、应激标记和整体基因表达，利用毒理学和生理学改变来评估对蝌蚪的影响，从而可以锚定分子起始事件。下游生理终点和由此产生的逆境，以及将这些反应映射到压力源组合，这种映射提供了一种非常新颖的方法，可以识别导致负面影响的特定压力源及其组合。野生类群和应激源的存在/严重程度之间的流域规模的生态流行病学研究通常将污染列为驱动野生动物负面影响的最重要变量之一。组合很少，特别是在多种压力源的情况下，污染物混合物配方将直接基于短暂 FW 的测量水平并与其他普遍存在的压力源（盐度、热浪）相结合。和/或入侵小龙虾 - Pacifasticus leniusculus 线索），所有这些实验室暴露都将是非常新颖的，对于了解多种压力源对居住在重要的短暂 FW 中的标志性两栖生物群的真正影响至关重要。测试如何最好地利用来自单一压力源暴露的数据，使用理论模型来预测效果为此，我们将应用新颖的理论范式来研究数据主导性（很少有压力源做出贡献）。与观察到的影响不成比例）和负担（总压力源负荷决定影响）——这对于多压力源科学具有广泛适用性的巨大潜力。与单端点方法相反，我们建议使用生态模型来研究对整个生物体的影响。最后，通过对笼养蝌蚪和本地蝌蚪进行移植和采样，将幼稚/本地适应的蝌蚪用作生物监测工具。评估 FW 湿地的健康状况将解决基于实地的流域级证据与当前有限的基于实验室的证据/理解之间的重要差距；该研究团队结合了该项目所需的 FW 生态毒理学、多重应激/混合效应生物学、生态模型、生物信息学和化学方面的卓越知识。一系列关注 FW 生态系统健康和减少污染影响的利益相关者。