Understanding how pathogens function in the natural populations from which they arise is a crucial step in the fight against emerging diseases. This research will focus on mammalian bacterial pathogens in the genus Bartonella. Bartonella are found in many species of mammals in the US, and are transmitted by blood-feeding insects, primarily fleas, ticks, and lice. In humans, they cause opportunistic infections (when a person is bitten by an infected insect), and are the causative agents of Carrion's disease, trench fever, and cat scratch fever. Although there is an expanding database of genomic information on Bartonella, very little is known about its ecology and evolution in the wild. Dr. Abbot will use genetic markers to study the spatial structure of Bartonella in the coastal plain and barrier islands of Georgia. Previous surveys have shown that these islands differ in the distribution of small mammals and insect vectors. Abbot will capitalize on these "natural experiments" to study how differing associations between vectors and mammalian hosts shape the phylogeographic structure and adaptation of Bartonella in natural populations.
There is a pressing need for primary, discovery-driven inquiries into the evolution and ecology of zoonotic pathogens in natural populations like Bartonella. Dr. Abbot's study will constitute one of the first explorations of microevolution in this emerging pathogen. Importantly, these data will be the first steps towards a larger integrative study on the evolutionary genetics of Bartonella in natural communities. Abbot anticipates that graduate students will be recruited to work on Bartonella. The proposed research promises to open doors to collaborations across disciplines, and thus to synthetic studies of Bartonella that bring together scientists with diverse perspectives on pathogen biology.
