The Impact of Population Structure on Pathogen Transmission in Balinese Macaques

University Of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN

Investigators

Abstract

Emerging infectious diseases are an ever-increasing part of the global landscape. As humans continue to alter the environment, human-wildlife interactions become more frequent. These interactions create risks for bi-directional pathogen transmission. On the Indonesian island of Bali, increases in human density and changes in land-use practices have substantially increased the amount of human-macaque contact, thus facilitating pathogen host-jump events. Moreover, these interactions are not confined to residents of Bali, but also involve more than one million tourists who visit Bali yearly, potentially impacting pathogen transmission on a global scale. Given that non-human primates are a demonstrated source of emerging diseases for humans, it is surprising how little is actually known about pathogen transmission dynamics within these wild host populations. This research seeks to model the relationship between human alteration of the environment, primate population genetic structure, and the ways in which pathogens are transmitted within and between primate populations. The genetic structure of macaques on Bali is determined by dispersal patterns resulting from complex social interactions being played out across the human-impacted (anthropogenic) landscape. Pathogens using macaques as their hosts are subject to these same influences. Therefore, measuring the genetic structuring of macaque populations will allow the prediction of pathogen transmission by providing detailed information of how the macaques move around their environment and which populations have differential exposure to the pathogens. The specific aims are: 1) to measure the genetic structuring of macaque populations in Bali, 2) to build an agent-based model using macaque genetic data overlain with geographical information systems (GIS) data representing different aspects of the anthropogenic landscape to make predictions about pathogen transmission, and 3) to verify and validate our model by measuring the distribution and genetic makeup of pathogen populations in the macaques across the island. The model will be used to evaluate how future changes in the anthropogenic landscape will impact pathogen transmission dynamics. Intellectual Merit. This project is the first to attempt to integrate the social, biological, and computer sciences to look at population structure and pathogen transmission in an island population of primates. We promote the use of agent-based modeling as a powerful methodological tool for investigating the interplay between individual-based mechanisms of host social interaction and dispersal and broader scale pathogen transmission dynamics across a complex landscape. The results of this research will be broadly applicable to other host-pathogen systems, both practically and theoretically. Broader Impacts. The results of this research project will benefit conservation protocols in the context of both disease and predictive population genetics models. This project trains interdisciplinary scientists focused on environmental health issues and engages a diverse audience by fostering international collaboration with Indonesia and cross-disciplinary collaboration within and between universities in the USA, providing links to the NSF funded University of Notre Dame IGERT-GLOBES graduate training program, and creating opportunities to incorporate undergraduate students as research partners and engage area high school teachers and their students in active research to help improve science curriculum at secondary schools in Indiana.