2020 - 2025
Disease meta-community ecology: Moving from the dilution effect to dilution landscapes [link]
Anthropogenic changes in landscape structure are related to the process of parasite spillover and disease emergence. Yet, the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms associating landscape change and disease emergence remain unclear. We need to understand both the non-random sequences by which communities are disassembled, and whether resilient species tend to amplify or dilute parasite transmission. We will develop theoretical and analytical frameworks to understand the structure and dynamics of host-parasite interaction networks across space and time. We will parameterize mathematical models with empirical data in order to model and predict: the diversity and composition of parasite and host assemblages across the landscape; the probability of parasite-host interactions; the effect of network structure on parasite-host coevolutionary dynamics; and the spatial risk of parasite spillover. We will then test model predictions and assumptions by sampling new empirical data.
Team: Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi - Coordinator / Mariana Moraes Vidal / Ana Paula Lula Costa / Gisele Winck / Gabriella Tabet
Funding: Instituto Serrapilheira
2020 - 2023
SARS-CoV-2 infection in wild and domestic animals in an Atlantic Forest area in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro
SARS-CoV-2 is believed to infect several mammals, such as bats, non-human primates, cats, ferrets and canids. However, we do not know whether these animals are able to maintain and transmit the virus. Epidemiological studies that elucidate which animals are possible hosts or permissive to infection are necessary. Understanding how an animal virus crosses species boundaries to infect humans so effectively is critical in preventing future zoonotic events, including the reemergence of COVID-19. The goal of this study is to analyze samples collected from domestic, synanthropic and wild animals from a Atlantic Forest remnant in the Rio de Janeiro city, to detect the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 and characterize the virus genome of the Coronaviridae family. Phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyzes of the viral genome will reveal the dynamics of this virus in animal populations. This study contributes to the understanding of the role of animals in the epidemiological cycle of SARS-CoV-2 and other emerging viruses of importance to public and animal health.
Team: Ricardo Moratelli Mendonça da Rocha - Coordinator / Marina Galvão Bueno / Maria Ogrzewalska / Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi / Rosana Gentile / Socrates Fraga da Costa Neto / Marina Carvalho Furtado / Sandro Antônio Pereira / Rodrigo Caldas Menezes / Paola Cristina Resende Silva / Maria Alice do Amaral Kuzel / Eduardo Rubião / Paulo Castiglioni Lara / Juana Oneida Huamán Charret Portugal / Judith Breuer / Sunando Roy / Rachel Williams
Funding: Foundation for Support of Research in the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ)
2020 - 2023
Integrating eco-evolutionary and socio-economic network data and models to understand and predict outbreaks of neglected tropical diseases
Global changes challenge scientists to build transdisciplinary knowledge that bridge theory, methods, and big data to sustain the integrative management of biodiversity, ecosystem services and socio-economic welfare. Fostering multi-institutional, transdisciplinary efforts to understand and predict outbreaks of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) represents an outstanding opportunity to combine biological and social science approaches to complex systems and promote science-based frameworks for policy-making and for optimizing the management of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and public health. We here propose an adaptive network approach to investigate the interface between biodiversity and public health in Brazil. In doing so, we aim to disentangle biological and socio-economic determinants of NTDs outbreaks based on (1) synthesis of existing big data to parameterize adaptive network models encompassing species-interactions and socio-economic network data describing biodiversity structure (which sustain ecosystem services) and the institutional network of public facilities (which sustain social welfare) at the local, regional, and/or national scales; (2) transdisciplinary theoretical integration built on the network approach to complex systems and, particularly, on the extension of the adaptive network approach to develop empirically-informed models predicting NTDs outbreaks; and (3) the articulation of the backbone of a multi-institutional network bridging research on biodiversity and public health and the strategic, integrative planning of public policies. Our proposal relies on the integrative approach provided by adaptive networks, which are a general class of dynamic network models that have been widely applied to study the structure and dynamics of complex systems in Biology, Economy, and the Social Sciences. Recently, adaptive network models have been proposed as the core of an integrative framework aimed to foster cooperative research involving theoretical and applied scientists interested in understanding, predicting and managing ecosystem services. We intend to extend this approach to investigate the intertwined dynamics of ecological networks, which depict ecosystem within which pathogens are embedded, and social networks, which depict the structure of public facilities and other determinants of health. Therefore, we expect to advance transdisciplinary theory building on the interface between biodiversity and public health by making publicly available biological and socio-economic big data associated with a transdisciplinary predictive framework that merges science, governance, and societal practices to strengthen ecosystem services and health policies..
Team: Paulo Sérgio D'Andrea - Coordinator / Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi - Co-coordinator / Gisele Winck / Gabriella Tabet / Rosana Gentile / José Luís Passos Cordeiro / Paulo Roberto Guimarães Júnior / Rafael Raimundo - Co-coordinator / Carlos Melián / Paula Lemos-Costa / Ana Carolina Figueiredo Lacerda / Ana Elisa de Faria Bacellar Schittini / Eduardo Krempser da Silva / Elaine Folly Ramos / Elba Regina Sampaio de Lemos / Fabiana Lopes Rocha / Jorge Luiz do Nascimento / Marco Antonio Ratzsch de Andreazzi / Marina Galvão Bueno / Samanta Cristina das Chagas Xavier / Talita Lima do Nascimento / Darren Evans .
Funding: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) [link]
Connections: Research Group IRIS: Innovation for Resilience, Inclusion and Sustainability [link]
2020 - 2023
Ecosystem and Environmental Services as Health Services: Competing Land Use Trajectories for the Amazon Biome and their Link to Vector Borne Diseases
Vector borne diseases are an important cause of morbidity, mortality and economic cost in Brazil and other tropical countries. Their dynamics and persistence involve a complex interaction between parasites and multiple hosts: humans, arthropods and multiple vertebrate species. There is a large body of knowledge and data on the ecology, biogeography, and epidemiology of vector borne diseases such as malaria, Chagas, dengue, yellow fever, among others. Also, there is a mature ecological theory linking disease dynamics to biodiversity and the landscape. The goal of this proposal is to develop indicators for ecosystem services coupled to health and agricultural productivity in the Amazon. This region is under rapid change due to competing land use trajectories associated with different economic development pathways. Our team of natural, health and applied social scientists will use available spatial and temporal data for land use and land cover, disease incidence, maps of mosquito suitability, inventories of parasites, hosts and vectors biodiversity, socio-economic surveys, local productive and innovative systems to develop a classification and measurement protocol of ecosystem and environmental services specific for vector borne diseases. The protocol will be applied to the technological trajectories observed in the Amazon region. We will deliver a framework for assessing health ecosystem and environmental services that can be integrated with other views to better understand the health and ecosystem impacts of different development strategies captured by competing land use trajectories for the Amazon and contribute to an informed decision making process based on the best science and empirical evidence.
Team: Cláudia Torres Codeço - Coordinator / Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi /Mercedes Pascual / Andrew P Dobson / Monica da Silva-Nunes / Flávio Codeço Coelho / Raquel Martins Lana / Antonio Miguel Vieira Monteiro / Izabel Cristina dos Reis / Andres Baeza / Ana Paula Dal`Asta / Maria Isabel Sobral Escada / Danilo Araújo Fernandes / Danuzia Lima Rodrigues / Alexandre Bahia Gontijo .
Funding: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). [link]
2019 - 2021
Functional ecology of zoonoses: Deciphering the epidemiological role of wild hosts in the transmission cycles of zoonoses in landscapes with different degrees of conservation.
Understanding how the structure of mammalian host communities is related to rates of infection by zoonotic agents is crucial to understanding the transmission cycles of zoonoses and predicting the emergence of outbreaks in human populations. Functional diversity allows us to understand the ecological role (function) of species in an ecosystem according to their morphological, physiological and behavioral characteristics (functional traits) and thus to predict the ecological impact resulting from their loss. In this sense, this project aims to develop theoretical models and innovative analytical methodologies to integrate theory with empirical data, advancing the field of the ecology of zoonoses in Brazil. We will propose quantitative and qualitative tools to identify which are the mammals functional traits that are relevant to their function in zoonoses transmission cycles and, thus, determine the effect of biodiversity loss on the risk of parasite transmission. In a general context, we intend to advance the understanding of the relationship between the structure and dynamics of ecological communities and zoonoses transmission cycles.
Team: Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi - Coordinator / Paulo Sérgio D'Andrea / Ricardo Moratelli / Gabriella Tabet / Luana Dalfuente Fernandez / Thiago Cardoso.
Funding: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Fundação para o Desenvolvimento Científicio e Tecnológico em Saúde (FIOTEC).
2018 - 2019
Biodiversity Dynamics in Coevolutionary Meta-ecosystems (COMETA)
The project COMETA will develop approaches to join coevolutionary dynamics, meta-ecosystems and interaction networks, by synthesizing spatial and trait interaction data in species-rich meta-ecosystems. We aim to contribute to the understanding of coevolution and ecosystem function in species- and interaction-rich networks at different spatial scales. Our main challenge will be to integrate models across an increasing level of complexity. We will focus on implementing analytic tools and testing them with empirical patterns from datasets containing many species and their interactions, sites and traits.
Team: Carlos Melián - Coordenador / Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi / Julia Astegiano.
Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Disease meta-community ecology: Moving from the dilution effect to dilution landscapes [link]
Anthropogenic changes in landscape structure are related to the process of parasite spillover and disease emergence. Yet, the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms associating landscape change and disease emergence remain unclear. We need to understand both the non-random sequences by which communities are disassembled, and whether resilient species tend to amplify or dilute parasite transmission. We will develop theoretical and analytical frameworks to understand the structure and dynamics of host-parasite interaction networks across space and time. We will parameterize mathematical models with empirical data in order to model and predict: the diversity and composition of parasite and host assemblages across the landscape; the probability of parasite-host interactions; the effect of network structure on parasite-host coevolutionary dynamics; and the spatial risk of parasite spillover. We will then test model predictions and assumptions by sampling new empirical data.
Team: Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi - Coordinator / Mariana Moraes Vidal / Ana Paula Lula Costa / Gisele Winck / Gabriella Tabet
Funding: Instituto Serrapilheira
2020 - 2023
SARS-CoV-2 infection in wild and domestic animals in an Atlantic Forest area in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro
SARS-CoV-2 is believed to infect several mammals, such as bats, non-human primates, cats, ferrets and canids. However, we do not know whether these animals are able to maintain and transmit the virus. Epidemiological studies that elucidate which animals are possible hosts or permissive to infection are necessary. Understanding how an animal virus crosses species boundaries to infect humans so effectively is critical in preventing future zoonotic events, including the reemergence of COVID-19. The goal of this study is to analyze samples collected from domestic, synanthropic and wild animals from a Atlantic Forest remnant in the Rio de Janeiro city, to detect the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 and characterize the virus genome of the Coronaviridae family. Phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyzes of the viral genome will reveal the dynamics of this virus in animal populations. This study contributes to the understanding of the role of animals in the epidemiological cycle of SARS-CoV-2 and other emerging viruses of importance to public and animal health.
Team: Ricardo Moratelli Mendonça da Rocha - Coordinator / Marina Galvão Bueno / Maria Ogrzewalska / Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi / Rosana Gentile / Socrates Fraga da Costa Neto / Marina Carvalho Furtado / Sandro Antônio Pereira / Rodrigo Caldas Menezes / Paola Cristina Resende Silva / Maria Alice do Amaral Kuzel / Eduardo Rubião / Paulo Castiglioni Lara / Juana Oneida Huamán Charret Portugal / Judith Breuer / Sunando Roy / Rachel Williams
Funding: Foundation for Support of Research in the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ)
2020 - 2023
Integrating eco-evolutionary and socio-economic network data and models to understand and predict outbreaks of neglected tropical diseases
Global changes challenge scientists to build transdisciplinary knowledge that bridge theory, methods, and big data to sustain the integrative management of biodiversity, ecosystem services and socio-economic welfare. Fostering multi-institutional, transdisciplinary efforts to understand and predict outbreaks of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) represents an outstanding opportunity to combine biological and social science approaches to complex systems and promote science-based frameworks for policy-making and for optimizing the management of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and public health. We here propose an adaptive network approach to investigate the interface between biodiversity and public health in Brazil. In doing so, we aim to disentangle biological and socio-economic determinants of NTDs outbreaks based on (1) synthesis of existing big data to parameterize adaptive network models encompassing species-interactions and socio-economic network data describing biodiversity structure (which sustain ecosystem services) and the institutional network of public facilities (which sustain social welfare) at the local, regional, and/or national scales; (2) transdisciplinary theoretical integration built on the network approach to complex systems and, particularly, on the extension of the adaptive network approach to develop empirically-informed models predicting NTDs outbreaks; and (3) the articulation of the backbone of a multi-institutional network bridging research on biodiversity and public health and the strategic, integrative planning of public policies. Our proposal relies on the integrative approach provided by adaptive networks, which are a general class of dynamic network models that have been widely applied to study the structure and dynamics of complex systems in Biology, Economy, and the Social Sciences. Recently, adaptive network models have been proposed as the core of an integrative framework aimed to foster cooperative research involving theoretical and applied scientists interested in understanding, predicting and managing ecosystem services. We intend to extend this approach to investigate the intertwined dynamics of ecological networks, which depict ecosystem within which pathogens are embedded, and social networks, which depict the structure of public facilities and other determinants of health. Therefore, we expect to advance transdisciplinary theory building on the interface between biodiversity and public health by making publicly available biological and socio-economic big data associated with a transdisciplinary predictive framework that merges science, governance, and societal practices to strengthen ecosystem services and health policies..
Team: Paulo Sérgio D'Andrea - Coordinator / Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi - Co-coordinator / Gisele Winck / Gabriella Tabet / Rosana Gentile / José Luís Passos Cordeiro / Paulo Roberto Guimarães Júnior / Rafael Raimundo - Co-coordinator / Carlos Melián / Paula Lemos-Costa / Ana Carolina Figueiredo Lacerda / Ana Elisa de Faria Bacellar Schittini / Eduardo Krempser da Silva / Elaine Folly Ramos / Elba Regina Sampaio de Lemos / Fabiana Lopes Rocha / Jorge Luiz do Nascimento / Marco Antonio Ratzsch de Andreazzi / Marina Galvão Bueno / Samanta Cristina das Chagas Xavier / Talita Lima do Nascimento / Darren Evans .
Funding: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) [link]
Connections: Research Group IRIS: Innovation for Resilience, Inclusion and Sustainability [link]
2020 - 2023
Ecosystem and Environmental Services as Health Services: Competing Land Use Trajectories for the Amazon Biome and their Link to Vector Borne Diseases
Vector borne diseases are an important cause of morbidity, mortality and economic cost in Brazil and other tropical countries. Their dynamics and persistence involve a complex interaction between parasites and multiple hosts: humans, arthropods and multiple vertebrate species. There is a large body of knowledge and data on the ecology, biogeography, and epidemiology of vector borne diseases such as malaria, Chagas, dengue, yellow fever, among others. Also, there is a mature ecological theory linking disease dynamics to biodiversity and the landscape. The goal of this proposal is to develop indicators for ecosystem services coupled to health and agricultural productivity in the Amazon. This region is under rapid change due to competing land use trajectories associated with different economic development pathways. Our team of natural, health and applied social scientists will use available spatial and temporal data for land use and land cover, disease incidence, maps of mosquito suitability, inventories of parasites, hosts and vectors biodiversity, socio-economic surveys, local productive and innovative systems to develop a classification and measurement protocol of ecosystem and environmental services specific for vector borne diseases. The protocol will be applied to the technological trajectories observed in the Amazon region. We will deliver a framework for assessing health ecosystem and environmental services that can be integrated with other views to better understand the health and ecosystem impacts of different development strategies captured by competing land use trajectories for the Amazon and contribute to an informed decision making process based on the best science and empirical evidence.
Team: Cláudia Torres Codeço - Coordinator / Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi /Mercedes Pascual / Andrew P Dobson / Monica da Silva-Nunes / Flávio Codeço Coelho / Raquel Martins Lana / Antonio Miguel Vieira Monteiro / Izabel Cristina dos Reis / Andres Baeza / Ana Paula Dal`Asta / Maria Isabel Sobral Escada / Danilo Araújo Fernandes / Danuzia Lima Rodrigues / Alexandre Bahia Gontijo .
Funding: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). [link]
2019 - 2021
Functional ecology of zoonoses: Deciphering the epidemiological role of wild hosts in the transmission cycles of zoonoses in landscapes with different degrees of conservation.
Understanding how the structure of mammalian host communities is related to rates of infection by zoonotic agents is crucial to understanding the transmission cycles of zoonoses and predicting the emergence of outbreaks in human populations. Functional diversity allows us to understand the ecological role (function) of species in an ecosystem according to their morphological, physiological and behavioral characteristics (functional traits) and thus to predict the ecological impact resulting from their loss. In this sense, this project aims to develop theoretical models and innovative analytical methodologies to integrate theory with empirical data, advancing the field of the ecology of zoonoses in Brazil. We will propose quantitative and qualitative tools to identify which are the mammals functional traits that are relevant to their function in zoonoses transmission cycles and, thus, determine the effect of biodiversity loss on the risk of parasite transmission. In a general context, we intend to advance the understanding of the relationship between the structure and dynamics of ecological communities and zoonoses transmission cycles.
Team: Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi - Coordinator / Paulo Sérgio D'Andrea / Ricardo Moratelli / Gabriella Tabet / Luana Dalfuente Fernandez / Thiago Cardoso.
Funding: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Fundação para o Desenvolvimento Científicio e Tecnológico em Saúde (FIOTEC).
2018 - 2019
Biodiversity Dynamics in Coevolutionary Meta-ecosystems (COMETA)
The project COMETA will develop approaches to join coevolutionary dynamics, meta-ecosystems and interaction networks, by synthesizing spatial and trait interaction data in species-rich meta-ecosystems. We aim to contribute to the understanding of coevolution and ecosystem function in species- and interaction-rich networks at different spatial scales. Our main challenge will be to integrate models across an increasing level of complexity. We will focus on implementing analytic tools and testing them with empirical patterns from datasets containing many species and their interactions, sites and traits.
Team: Carlos Melián - Coordenador / Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi / Julia Astegiano.
Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
