The ecological role of parasites in gut community dynamics: from ecological networks to community function

• Applicant: Susana Carolina Martins Ferreira, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Parasitology and Biology of Tropical Infectious Disease Pathogens
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 440909536

Gastrointestinal parasites are common symbiotic members of mammalian gut communities. During gut colonization, parasites become part of a complex assembly composed of prokaryotes, micro- and macro-eukaryotes as well as viruses. These taxa have distinct metabolic functions and engage in interactions that can alter a host’s susceptibility to parasite infections. Understanding the stability of the ecosystem in terms of the parasite-induced changes (resistance) and how quickly those changes are reversed upon clearance (resilience) is key to predict community responses to parasites. How interactions within gut communities, including eukaryotes and prokaryotes, and their functional capacities contribute to maintaining stability upon frequent and recurrent infection with parasites remains a largely unexplored but important field and will be addressed in this proposal. A useful approach to investigate interactions within complex communities and their functional profiles are high-throughput molecular methods, however, they require advanced computational power and analytical frameworks. I will combine these methods, concepts developed in the context of ecosystems and state-of-the-art bioinformatic and statistical methodologies, originally developed for the investigation of bacterial gut communities, to analyse inferred interactions of parasites in the gut. The overall aim is to shed light on the effects of parasite infection on gut ecosystem dynamics. In order to achieve this goal, I will use existing large cross-sectional and longitudinal datasets from the established Eimeria-house mice model in natural and laboratory settings. As complementary aspects of community stability, I will consider the 1) taxonomic composition, 2) functional capacity, and 3) ecological interaction networks of both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. This integrative approach will allow me to identify the parasite induced emergent properties of the gut community by characterising the ecosystem resistance and resilience to infection and infer parasite interactions within ecological networks. I will also identify common parasite induced effects by directly comparing laboratory and natural infection settings. I postulate that parasite-associated emergent properties increase our understanding of the community dynamics during parasite colonization and the gut ecosystem in general.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Austria
• Host: Professor Dr. Thomas Rattei