Understanding Scale Dependency Between Microbiological and Climatic Processes for Prediction of Vibrios in Estuarine Environments

Linking earth observations with abundance of vibrios remain a challenge, primarily due to spatio-temporal scale mismatch that further limits development of predictive algorithms for understanding mechanisms of disease outbreaks in human population. Coastal regions of the continental US have documented presence of several vibrios, however, V. vulnificus and V. parahaemolyticus have been associated with significant human health impacts. These two types of vibrios have characteristic climatic signatures that may be sensitive to inter annual and seasonal variability across scales. The objective of this study is to understand how climatic processes are linked with abundance of vibrios with a long term goal to develop a real time prediction algorithms. Using in-situ data for four years (2009-2012) from Chesapeake Bay, we will explore complex relationship between water chemistry (e.g. salinity, pH, conductivity, total dissolved solids, dissolve oxygen, chlorophyll) and climatic (air and water temperature) data that were collected from both top water surface and bottom of coastal environments. Thereafter, we will use satellite data to validate in-situ observations to develop a niche model for two vibrios along coastal regions of the US. Our initial results suggests that diarrheal disease uphold a consistent opposite association with dissolve oxygen and chlorophyll while sustain a consistent direct association with air and water temperature through water and oyster but not through sediment in the coast.