Abstract
Infectious disease outbreaks can cause massive mortality episodes in both wild and domestic animals. Yet, the mechanisms through which environmental sources of stress underlie such outbreaks remain poorly investigated. Because they are situated high in food webs and aggregate at high densities, seabirds represent excellent study species as they accumulate large amounts of mercury and suffer changes in food availability. In this project, I plan to use an experimental approach to investigate, for the first time, whether mercury exposure, nutritional stress, or their potential combined effect i) promote disease occurrence; ii) disrupt key physiological pathways; and iii) impact on parental care provisioning during the chick-rearing period. I will combine the collection of correlational and experimental data using a population of Magnificent frigatebirds breeding in French Guiana as main model species. This population is exposed to both high mercury levels and to nutritional stress, and it is subjected to massive mortality episodes of chicks likely associated with a herpesvirus infection, offering an unprecedented opportunity to address the above-mentioned research gaps. Never has it been more crucial to understand the potential connection between exposure to environmental stressors and viral disease occurrence in wildlife, as it represents a long-term threat for marine top-predators and biodiversity worldwide, and has been never been investigated experimentally in the wild.
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