Survey of the Parasites of Small Mammals of the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge

塞维利亚国家野生动物保护区小哺乳动物寄生虫调查

• 批准号: 9505025
• 负责人: Donald Duszynski
• 金额: $ 37.87万
• 依托单位: University of New Mexico
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1995
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1995-08-15 至 2000-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9505025&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Survey; Parasites; Small; Mammals; Sevilleta

The 100,000 ha Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR) in central New Mexico lies in a transition zone that straddles several major biomes of the Southwest: Great Basin Shrub-Steppe, Mogollon Pinon-Juniper Woodland, Great Plains Grassland and Chihuahuan Desert. In the past six years (1989-1994), collaborating with the University of New Mexico s Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, 3,235 rodents (28 species, in 4 families) were collected and identified from permanent collecting sites on the three major habitat types (grassland, desert/creosote, woodland) of the SNWR. Hosts were necropsied for endoparasites (protozoa coccidia , helminths) and some ectoparasites. This project will identify a nd analyze all the parasites found in these hosts and in hosts that will continue to be collected during the next three years of this study. By 1998, the project will have put in place the means to easily identify and monitor the parasites form all mammalian hosts caught through the year 2000 on the LTER Phase II grant, and into perpetuity on subsequent renewals. The data to be collected will be unique for several reasons: 1) This will be the first complete inventory of a natural assemblage of parasites form all mammalian (rodent) hosts in three different communities, each form a distinctly defined geographic locality (habitat type) over the period of a decade, and beyond; 2) This study is part of a multidisciplinary approach to address conceptual issues of climate change on ecosystem structure and function at multiple scales (individuals, communities, etc.) and correlative data from these related studies will strengthen and contribute to the robustness of this data set; and 3) As the only parasite study on any of the LTER projects nationwide, it will provide an ideal model, and perhaps incentive, for parallel long-term studies of parasite communities to be examined in a variety of other habitat types, and form a variety of different perspectives, at other LTER sites in the network. Upon completing this work the project team will be able to use these long-term data to try to understand the dynamics of natural host-parasite assemblages. Hypotheses then can be erected to test/address at least questions: How do the different parasite communities colonize, mature, climax and senesce over time (or do they?)? Do they vary in response to abiotic ( climate change) and/or biotic (dispersal, colonization) factors? What temporal/spatial scales, and among what kinds of organisms, do coevolutionary processes influence the community organization of these parasites? Studies of the dynamics of multiple, coexisting species are confined primarily to microtine rodents and have hinted that multiannual cyc les tend to be synchronous (Brown and Heske 1990). Are similar patterns seen for parasites of our desert rodents? Answers to these questions relating to community structure, as well as to questions concerning parasite biodiversity on the SNWR, can be addressed partially or completely by the information gathered on the parasite species infecting rodents collected on the SNWR. Initial emphasis of the work will be on identifying all the parasites collected, by processing to completion what will eventually be 9 consecutive years of parasite data, and on training the undergraduate and graduate students involved in the art of taxonomy and nomenclature of parasitic protozoans and helminths, to begin to supply some of these answers.

位于新墨西哥州中部、占地 10 万公顷的塞维利亚塔国家野生动物保护区 (SNWR) 位于横跨西南部几个主要生物群落的过渡地带：大盆地灌木草原、莫戈隆皮农杜松林地、大平原草原和奇瓦瓦沙漠。 在过去的六年（1989-1994）中，与新墨西哥大学的长期生态研究（LTER）计划合作，从SNWR的三种主要栖息地类型（草地、沙漠/杂酚油、林地）的永久收集点收集并鉴定了3,235只啮齿动物（4科28种）。 对宿主进行尸检，检查体内寄生虫（原生动物球虫、蠕虫）和一些体外寄生虫。 该项目将识别并分析这些宿主以及将在本研究的未来三年中继续收集的宿主中发现的所有寄生虫。 到 1998 年，该项目将采取措施，轻松识别和监测 2000 年 LTER 第二阶段拨款中捕获的所有哺乳动物宿主的寄生虫，并在后续更新中永久有效。 由于以下几个原因，要收集的数据将是独一无二的：1）这将是对三个不同群落中所有哺乳动物（啮齿动物）宿主的寄生虫自然组合的第一个完整清单，每个群落在十年及更长时间内形成了明确定义的地理区域（栖息地类型）； 2) 本研究是多学科方法的一部分，旨在解决气候变化对多个尺度（个人、社区等）生态系统结构和功能的概念问题，这些相关研究的相关数据将加强并有助于该数据集的稳健性； 3) 作为全国范围内 LTER 项目中唯一的寄生虫研究，它将提供一个理想的模型，或许还有激励作用，以便在网络中的其他 LTER 站点上对各种其他栖息地类型中的寄生虫群落进行并行长期研究，并形成各种不同的观点。 完成这项工作后，项目团队将能够使用这些长期数据来尝试了解自然宿主-寄生虫组合的动态。 然后可以建立假设来测试/解决至少以下问题：不同的寄生虫群落如何随着时间的推移而定殖、成熟、高潮和衰老（或者它们确实如此？）？ 它们对非生物（气候变化）和/或生物（扩散、殖民）因素的反应是否有所不同？ 共同进化过程在什么时间/空间尺度以及什么类型的生物体中影响这些寄生虫的群落组织？ 对多种共存物种动态的研究主要局限于小齿类啮齿动物，并暗示多年周期往往是同步的（Brown 和 Heske 1990）。 我们的沙漠啮齿动物的寄生虫是否也有类似的模式？ 这些与群落结构有关的问题以及有关 SNWR 寄生虫生物多样性的问题的答案，可以通过在 SNWR 上收集的感染啮齿动物的寄生虫物种的信息来部分或完全解决。 这项工作的最初重点是识别所有收集到的寄生虫，通过处理最终完成连续 9 年的寄生虫数据，并培训本科生和研究生参与寄生原生动物和蠕虫的分类和命名艺术，以开始提供其中一些答案。