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UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND LAND USE MODIFICATIONS IN FACILITATING PATHOGEN INVASIONS AND DECLINES OF ECTOTHERMS
Impact/Purpose:
Invasive parasites of humans and wildlife are arising at an unprecedented rate and are debilitating our ecosystems. For instance, pathogens have been implicated in many amphibian declines that are triggering state changes and impairing ecosystem functions. Climate change and land use modifications might elicit disease emergence, but few generalizations have materialized for how these factors facilitate parasite invasions. We recently documented immuno-suppression in amphibians associated with agrochemical exposure and temporal climatic variability, stimulating the agrochemical spread and climatic variability hypotheses. These hypotheses predict that proximity to agriculture (a global land-use modification) and elevated temporal variability in temperature (due to climate change), respectively, compromise host immunity and facilitate parasite invasions. In our preliminary work, both temperature increases and decreases caused suboptimal immunity, but drastic seasonal drops in temperature caused the longest periods of suboptimal immunity, stimulating the hypothesis that cold-tolerant parasites will benefit most from elevated climatic variability driven by global climate change. We propose to test these hypotheses on multiple parasites and ectothermic taxa, but intentionally focus on the invasive Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and amphibians because this emerging chytrid fungus is cold-tolerant and implicated in many of the global amphibian declines.
Description:
We expect to reveal general mechanisms by which climate change and specific land use modifications facilitate parasite invasions. This will enhance risk assessment and management by allowing decision makers to prioritize regions, localities, and species that are at risk for potentially debilitating parasite invasions.