CAREER: Heterogeneity in lizard-malaria transmission: An interdisciplinary research and educational approach

The integration of mathematical models and ecological experiments presents a unique opportunity to understand, in simplified ways, complex ecological interactions. Parasitism is one of these complex interactions that can impact multiple types of hosts from humans to plants. The process of parasite transmission is complex, and parasites employ various mechanisms to ultimately exploit the host resources.

Some parasites even use other organisms, like insects, as vectors to infect their hosts which adds, yet another layer of complexity. Mathematical models have been essential to allow us to study vector-borne parasite transmission. Yet, these simplified relationships ultimately may result in an incomplete picture of the ecological process.

Moreover, these simplifications may result in biased understanding of key population-level outcomes such as the proportion of individuals infected or how likely is a parasite to persist. For instance, models assume that every individual host has the same probability of getting infected. However, we know that this may not be always true.

This project considers individual differences, host movement, and spatial variations to study their impact on host infection and the transmission of disease in the system. This CAREER project integrates teaching and research to development a graduate course and will provide opportunities to graduate, undergraduate, and high school students in research.

This study evaluates how much model complexity is needed to effectively describe and forecast vector-borne disease dynamics. To answer this question this project follows an interdisciplinary approach that integrates hypotheses derived from theoretical mathematical models of increasing complexity with field transmission experiments in a natural lizard-malaria system in Puerto Rico.

The investigators will build models that describe vector-borne parasite transmission under a variety of heterogeneous scenarios for the hosts including (1) individual differences, (2) movement, and (3) spatial heterogeneity. Then, the hypotheses will be tested in enclosure experiments in a natural lizard-malaria system. In these experiments, the conditions of the mathematical models on populations of infected and uninfected lizards and mosquito vectors will be recreated to quantify parasite prevalence and persistence under different heterogeneity scenarios.

The quantitative interdisciplinary approach that is the cornerstone of this project is also regarded as a key gap in undergraduate and graduate training in ecology. The educational component of this project addresses this issue by developing and testing a novel pedagogical approach providing novel tools to teach mathematical modeling concepts to non-math majors

This award was supported by the Mathematical Biology Program in the Division of Mathematical Sciences and the Population and Community Ecology Cluster in the Division of Environmental Sciences.

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.