Spring 2001 -- Vol. 18, No. 1

Ecology Professor's Research Gets Some Significant Funding

Maybe it was not quite like winning the lottery or successfully sitting in the hot seat on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? but being awarded significant research support certainly made biologist Joseph Kiesecker a happy man.

His proposal to study wetlands--specifically how humans and urbanization impact those areas and what that means in terms of disease for amphibians--was supported recently with $2.09 million dollars for five years.  According to Kiesecker, typical funding for ecological research might total a couple hundred thousand dollars for a similar period of time.  But, through the recently established Ecology of Infectious Diseases initiative, a combined effort of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, Kiesecker's group was one of 12 supported by more than $23 million.  Along with NIH/NSF, the program was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which handled Kiesecker's proposal, and groups such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Geological Survey.

"The awards are probably a bit more than the average, but the rationale is that they're intended to be interdisciplinary  projects, which require different expertise from people in different fields," said Allen Deary, chief of the Chemical Exposures and Molecular Biology Branch, Division of Extramural Research and Training, at NIEHS.  "Professor Kiesecker's proposed research provides a very interesting look at the influence of physical and chemical changes in wetlands.  It has the potential to determine what we call ësentinal indicators' of changes in environment that might eventually influence human health."

According to Kiesecker, his research has an opportunity to make an important contribution to the understanding of human impact on watersheds and amphibian disease.

A frog that has been infected with digenic trematodes, causing limb buds to split and form an extra pair of legs. This type of deformity is believed to be on the rise, possibly because of environmental factors.

"They're not putting an ecological slant on biomedical research," Kiesecker said.  "They want us to focus on real ecology.  We had a good proposal, and they seemed excited about our question and the fact that we had quite a bit of preliminary data.  The other thing that might have been appealing was the fact that we are working with amphibians, and there is a larger issue of the global decline of amphibian populations and whether disease may be a factor.  Specific amphibians and diseases may differ, but the trends are the same."

With the funding, Kiesecker gets an opportunity to continue research that has been his focus for the past several years.  His previous efforts with amphibians and disease created much of the preliminary data he provided to NIH during the grant proposal process.  Along with field and laboratory research, the project includes other investigators--among them collaborators at Wake Forest University and Yale University as well as some additions to the faculty at Penn State, including assistant professor Katriona Shea, who focuses on theoretical ecology, and several graduate students.

According to Kiesecker, typical human impacts on watersheds include: the reduction of cover, diminishing trees and allowing more light into an area; an increase in nutrient input; and a change in the hydroperiod, altering how often a watershed dries, for example, or directing water into a specific channel from a larger, more diffuse area.

"You can go from one town another and see similar sorts of things," Kiesecker said.  He believes research on ecological interactions could ultimately aid the prevention of disease.  "Whether we're building a house or a shopping mall, we make certain kinds of organisms thrive and other organisms disappear and we change the nature of ecological interactions. Any number of disease outbreaks we can point to--such as Lyme disease or Hantavirus, which have attracted a lot of attention the past few years--are likely the result of some sort of ecological change."

Through his research, Kiesecker hopes to gain a better understanding of how those consistent changes humans make to wetlands impact the prevalence of disease and the effect of disease on community dynamics.  A big portion of the research project focuses on snails and larval amphibians, including their abundance and the regularity of infection after exposure to disease-causing organisms.  Specifically, Kiesecker hopes to understand how human-induced changes increase the occurrence of infection for amphibians and other organisms.  Researchers plan to study several species of snails that are vectors for amphibian disease, as well as vectors for human diseases.  Along with field and laboratory work, the research includes mathematical and theoretical modeling based on the field and laboratory results.

"We need to look at disease from a more global perspective," Kiesecker said.  "You can look at disease from an individual or medical perspective, and what to do once you're dealing with an outbreak.  But, you can also take a different perspective, in terms of how some diseases have probably resulted from ecological changes that brought humans in contact with pathogens they never contacted before, and try to determine what types of changes result in those situations."

With a specific focus and a variety of contributors at Penn State, Kiesecker's research means good things for the Department of Biology.  However, while the department grows in reputation and size as a result of the project, with the arrival and presence of faculty members like Shea, the potential scientific results of the work are causing the most excitement.

Other amphibians found in the Northeastern United States that face threats of disease because of environmental factors include members of the hyle, or tree frog, family (below) and species of salamander (left), who in some forested areas may account for a majority of the vertebrate biomass

"Obviously we are excited about Joe's big grant," said Douglas Cavener, professor and head of the Department of Biology.  "It's a real feather in his cap and it will help to generate enthusiasm for the growth of the ecology group at Penn State.  Of much more importance, though, is the research that will be possible in a crucial area of ecology that attempts to understand the relationship of human alteration of the environment to disease in other animals."

For Kiesecker, Penn State provides an ideal location as the center for such a research project.  With several watersheds nearby, State College serves as one of four "urban" areas included in the study.  In addition, the proximity of potential field sites and his laboratory means a great deal.  Sites in four states--Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont--will be included in the project.

"We have wetlands nearby where there has not been overt impact by humans," Kiesecker said.  "We can use these sites as a reference for comparison with more disturbed sites.  Plus, we have a wonderful location in terms of convenience.  Many places would require considerable travel to reach an abundance of suitable research sites.  Here, because of the high density of amphibian habitat within a short drive from campus, we can go to a field site in the morning, and easily be back in the office in the afternoon."

Kiesecker gained his love of science and the outdoors as a child growing up in New York City, and he still enjoys the outdoors a great deal.  In fact, he started perfecting an outdoors-and-back-to-the-office routine at an early age.

"My dad was someone who always got us out of the city, and we went camping all the time," Kiesecker said.  "He got me interested in museums, too.  Probably the biggest mistake he ever made was showing me how to take the subway to the American Museum of Natural History.  There were some days as a third grader when it was a lot easier to jump the subway and go to the museum than to go to school and sit in class all day."

To this day Kiesecker remembers catching his first frog.  His love of amphibians, especially as research subjects, makes his work even more enjoyable.  He believes frogs provide ideal subjects because they're easier to control and manipulate than most other vertebrates.  At the same time, what happens to amphibians can be applied to other vertebrate groups, including humans--which might account for another reason his research has gained so much support.

-- By Steve Sampsell

Back to Science Journal Spring 2001 Index

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