Biodiversity, Habitat Fragmentation, & Lyme Disease Risk

生物多样性、栖息地破碎化、

• 批准号: 6837205
• 负责人: Richard Simon Ostfeld
• 金额: $ 40.46万
• 依托单位: INSTITUTE OF ECOSYSTEM STUDIES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-01-15 至 2006-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6837205
• 关键词: Biodiversity; Habitat; Fragmentation; Lyme; Disease

EXCEED THE SPACE PROVIDED. We propose a research program that focuses on the interactions among tick vectors, bacterial pathogens, the community of vertebrate hosts, and the ecological landscapes in which vectors, pathogens, hosts, and humans interact to affect exposure to Lyme disease. We focus on Lyme disease because of its high incidence, widespread distribution, large body of ecological and epidemiological background information, and potential as a model of other vector-borne zoonoses. Our research over the past 9 years has generated a conceptual model that we call the dilution effect. According to this model, high species diversity in the community of hosts for ticks reduces the infection prevalence of ticks by diluting the effects of the ubiquitous white-footed mouse, which is the principal natural reservoir for the disease agent, Borrelia burgdorferi. Other published research suggests that species diversity of vertebrates decreases, and population density of mice increases, with decreasing forest patch size. We propose to test this model rigorously at sites in six northeastern states. Our research will focus on the generality of the dilution effect and on the mechanisms that underlie it. We will assess the species richness and relative abundance of vertebrate hosts, as a function of size of forest fragments, in suburban landscapes of the Northeast. We will use both species diversity indices and patch size as independent variables in regressions that use either infection prevalence of nymphal ticks, or the abundance of infected nymphs, as dependent variables. Finally, we will use modeling approaches developed in our lab to both assess the generality of the dilution effect for other vector-borne diseases and increase the realism of the Lyme-disease system. Our research comprises a rigorous, multidisciplinary approach to understanding the linkages between ecology and risk of infectious disease. PERFORMANCE SITE ========================================Section End===========================================

超过提供的空间。我们提出了一项研究计划，该计划重点介绍了tick媒介，细菌病原体，脊椎动物宿主社区以及载体，病原体，宿主和人类相互作用以影响暴露于莱姆病的生态景观之间的相互作用。我们专注于莱姆病，因为它的发病率很高，分布广泛，生态和流行病学背景信息，以及作为其他载体传播人畜共患病模型的潜力。在过去的9年中，我们的研究产生了一种概念模型，我们称之为稀释效果。根据该模型，tick虫社区中的高物种多样性通过稀释无处不在的白脚小鼠的影响来降低tick虫的感染，该小鼠是该疾病剂的主要天然储层Borrelia Burgdorferi。其他已发表的研究表明，脊椎动物的物种多样性减少，小鼠的种群密度随着森林斑块的减少而增加。我们建议在东北六个州的六个地点严格测试该模型。我们的研究将集中于稀释效应的一般性以及其基础的机制。我们将在东北的郊区景观中评估脊椎动物宿主的物种丰富度和相对丰度，这是森林碎片的大小的函数。我们将使用物种多样性指数和斑块大小作为自变量的回归中，这些变量使用若虫壁虱的感染率或丰富的感染若虫作为因变量。最后，我们将使用实验室中开发的建模方法来评估其他载体疾病的稀释效应的一般性，并增加莱姆疾病系统的现实主义。我们的研究包括一种严格的多学科方法，可以理解生态学与传染病风险之间的联系。表演网站=================================== ==================================