CAREER: Marshaling NEON Resources to Understand Wildlife Disease Transmission

Wild animals carry many different kinds of pathogens that can be transmitted to other individuals of the same or different species. The virus that causes COVID is a likely example. These transmission events are thought to be influenced by environmental conditions, which affect wildlife abundance, distribution, and health. This NSF CAREER project focuses on how changes in environmental conditions contribute to pathogen transmission from wildlife to humans. Researchers will study wild rodent populations in North and South America, providing a comprehensive investigation of wildlife disease transmission across different ecosystems. Results will help answer how changes in rainfall and temperature influence pathogen infection rates in wildlife and hence the likelihood that those pathogens will spread to humans. Such information will inform strategies to prevent new epidemics. Students will participate in international field expeditions in South America and laboratory work in Virginia, an educational summer program at Virginia Tech, and a new course on how to map wildlife diseases. Researchers will investigate hantavirus circulation in wild rodents and model the risk of transmission to humans. Data will be analyzed from the continental United States [National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)] and Chile to provide comprehensive environmental gradients, diverse rodent species, and two hantavirus lineages. Rodents will be sero-surveyed and demographic and epidemiological parameters will be estimated from field data. These data will be integrated through ecological niche modeling. Models will help elucidate the linkages between environmental suitability of the rodent host and transmission patterns of hantavirus. The project features a strong educational component, including an exchange program between United States and Chilean scholars. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.