NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2016

Direnzo Graziella V, Hamden CT

Investigators

Abstract

Postdoctoral Fellow: Graziella V. DiRenzo Proposal number: 1611692 This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2016, Broadening Participation of Groups Under-represented in Biology. The fellowship supports a research and training plan that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. The title of the research plan for this fellowship to Graziella V. DiRenzo is 'Who got you sick? Protecting amphibians by examining disease dynamics within- and among- hosts.' The host institution for this fellowship is University of California, Santa Barbara, and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Cherie Briggs. The goal of this research is to test well-established community ecology theory under the framework of disease ecology, in order to understand how within-host processes affect among-host disease dynamics. The number of emerging pathogens threatening animal, plant, and ecosystem health is rapidly escalating, jeopardizing food security and the economy. Pathogen co-infections, where a single host is infected by multiple pathogens, are common but understudied in the wild, creating a large disparity between ongoing disease ecology research and a realistic host-pathogen community-based approach. The Fellow is examining (1) how pathogen infection order affects pathogen interactions within a host and (2) the consequences of within-host pathogen interactions to pathogen transmission rates. The Fellow's research integrates the urgency in understanding co-infection disease dynamics and amphibian population declines. The decline and extinction of over 500 amphibian species has been linked to disease-causing pathogens, including Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis [Bd], ranavirus, and Ribeiroia ondatrae [Rib]. The Fellow is experimentally infecting three common, temperate amphibian species, implicated as being pathogen reservoirs, with the three most common amphibian pathogens (Bd, ranavirus, and Rib). She is varying the order of pathogen infections and examining how this order affects pathogen interactions (i.e., whether the effect is facilitative, neutral, or antagonistic). Then, using the same individuals, with known pathogen infection histories, the Fellow is pairing each infected host with a naïve host to determine if within-host pathogen interactions favor more or less virulent pathogenic strains that are transmitted more or less rapidly. Thus the Fellow's research contributes to understanding (1) pathogen population dynamics within hosts, (2) if pathogen infection order matters, and (3) how pathogen virulence may change as a result of co-infection. To help promote education on amphibians and coinfection research, the Fellow is (1) training and mentoring several undergraduate minority students, (2) developing an annual public workshop at Protected Areas (i.e., National Parks and Forests) to bring awareness to tourists that may be spreading infectious pathogens across parks, (3) creating 'preventing pathogen spread kits' containing specific action items for tourists to minimize pathogen spread, (4) compiling an online disease database synthesizing infections of wild amphibians by species (i.e., geographic range of infected hosts, localities tested, and infection intensities) for conservation managers and policy decision makers, and (5) providing recommendations to national amphibian conservation management plans using her research results. As a Latina, the Fellow has a strong commitment to providing research opportunities to minorities, thereby serving as a role model for women, minorities, and first generation college students.