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.

生物多样性以惊人的速度下降。多种压力源通过淡水（FW）生态系统的影响促进了许多压力。短暂的FW（例如沼泽，池塘）是异常生物多样性的，并且高度暴露于各种环境压力源，但在学术界和调节中通常被忽略。两栖动物至少3.5亿年来一直是这些栖息地的主要组成部分，并高度发展为这些生态系统。两栖动物和湿地是全球最受威胁的门，由于人类影响系统发出的高甲烷水平，湿地健康的钥匙要造成气候危机。使用野外和实验室方法，我们将在这里研究环境压力源组合，推动两栖动物（Common Frog，Rana formorarya）的负面影响，并试图开发一种生物监测方法来评估这些重要生态系统的健康。由于两栖动物是最受威胁的脊椎动物门，因此该项目与保护优先级高度相关。将测量一般健康，疾病状况，应力标记和全球基因表达。使用毒物基因组学和对生理学的改变来评估对t的影响，可以将分子启动事件的锚定锚定在下游生理终点和产生的广告上，并将这些响应映射到压力源组合。该映射提出了一种高度新颖的方法，允许识别特定的压力及其组合，这些压力及其组合会带来负面影响，并且在生物群中广泛适用。野生类群与压力源的存在/严重程度之间的流域规模的生态学研究通常将污染列为最重要的变量之一。但是，关于污染在环境相关水平和混合组合中的影响的研究很少，尤其是在多种压力源的情况下。在这里，污染物混合配方将直接基于短暂的FWS中的测量水平，并与其他无处不在的应激源（盐度，热浪和/或侵入性小龙虾-Pacificus leniusculus Cue）结合在一起，所有这些都在环境相关的水平和组合上。这些实验室暴露将是高度新颖的，并且重要的是了解多种压力源对影响重要短暂FWS的标志性两栖动物的真正影响。将测试如何最好地利用单个应力源暴露中的数据，以使用理论模型来预测效果。为此，我们将在数据上应用新颖的理论范例 - 优势（很少有压力源对观察到的效果不成比例）和燃烧（总应激量负载确定的效应） - 对于多压力科学而言，它们具有巨大的可施加性。与单端方法相反，我们建议使用生态建模来研究对整个组织及其人群的影响，以极大地改善这些数据的效用。最后，通过移植产卵和采样笼子和天然t和本地t，将评估幼稚/局部适应的t，作为评估FW湿地健康状况的生物监测工具的实用性。这项工作将解决基于现场的集水级证据之间的文献差距，证明了多个压力源的重要性和当前有限的基于实验室的证据/理解的重要性；以及开发一个新的测试范式，并使用实际应用进行保护。研究小组结合了FW生态学，多重压力/混合效应生物学，FW生态学，生态建模，生物信息学和化学的卓越。此外，项目合作伙伴和支持组织包括一系列侧重于FW生态系统健康并减少污染影响的利益相关者。