Biodiversity, Habitat Fragmentation, & Lyme Disease Risk

生物多样性、栖息地破碎化、

• 批准号: 7008520
• 负责人: Richard Simon Ostfeld
• 金额: $ 40.34万
• 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/7008520
• 关键词: Biodiversity; Habitat; Fragmentation; Lyme; Disease

DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): 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 vertebrate's 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.

描述（由申请人提供）：我们提出了一项研究计划，重点关注蜱媒介、细菌病原体、脊椎动物宿主群落之间的相互作用，以及媒介、病原体、宿主和人类相互作用影响暴露的生态景观。莱姆病。我们关注莱姆病，因为它发病率高、分布广泛、有大量的生态和流行病学背景信息，并且有可能成为其他媒介传播的人畜共患病的模型。我们过去 9 年的研究产生了一个概念模型，我们称之为稀释效应。根据该模型，蜱宿主群落中的高物种多样性通过稀释无处不在的白足鼠的影响来降低蜱的感染流行率，而白足鼠是疾病媒介伯氏疏螺旋体的主要天然宿主。其他已发表的研究表明，随着森林斑块面积的减小，脊椎动物的物种多样性下降，小鼠的种群密度增加。我们建议在东北部六个州的地点严格测试该模型。我们的研究将集中于稀释效应的普遍性及其背后的机制。我们将评估东北部郊区景观中脊椎动物宿主的物种丰富度和相对丰度，作为森林碎片大小的函数。我们将使用物种多样性指数和斑块大小作为回归中的自变量，使用若虫蜱的感染流行率或受感染若虫的丰度作为因变量。最后，我们将使用我们实验室开发的建模方法来评估其他媒介传播疾病的稀释效应的普遍性，并提高莱姆病系统的真实性。我们的研究采用严格的多学科方法来了解生态与传染病风险之间的联系。