PEET: Revitalizing Taxonomic Expertise in Digenea for the 21st Century: The Haploporid Monographs

总部设在墨西哥湾沿岸研究实验室（GCRL，南密西西比大学的海洋温泉校区）的寄生虫学部分，该项目建立和加强了一个由30多名寄生虫学家，鱼类学家，教育工作者，策展人和学生组成的国际网络，分布在七个州和十个国家的十所大学和政府组织。该项目将保存和振兴软体扁虫、吸虫（扁形动物：双殖吸虫属）的巨大多样性群体的分类学专门知识，并重点关注由感染世界各地淡水和海水沃茨中食草鱼类肠道的成员组成的吸虫（单孔虫科）家族。 该项目将培训至少三名博士生和两名博士后研究员，以1）单孔虫科四个亚科的专著，2）翻译和全球传播新产生的分类学专业知识，3）招募，教育和激励下一代的digenean分类学家。每位学员都将是一名熟练工，负责积极参与他们研究的各个方面，并最终为他们的团队制作一本堪称典范的黄金标准专著。采取这种果断行动的必要性是显而易见的。由于教授们在其领域被取代之前就去世或退休了，一个在第二类分类学领域的老政治家谱系濒临灭绝;很少有人能识别或正确地收集和固定标本;年轻的学生既不学习阿尔法分类学的手艺，也不学习正确的标本制备技术。新的单孢子虫将从南美洲、南部非洲、中东、印度太平洋和澳大利亚的未开发地区收集。在基因阵列技术实验室（USM，GCRL）和Vasyl Tkach博士（北达科他州大学，大福克斯）的帮助下，形态特征将通过分子数据得到增强。墨西哥湾沿岸地理空间中心将绘制采集点的地理信息系统地图。其他寄生虫将被路由到其他分类权威;乔治本茨博士（中田纳西州立大学，默弗里斯伯勒）-鱼类桡足类，德莱恩克里茨基博士（爱达荷州大学）-选择单殖吸虫，和博士利伦索尔特（伊利诺伊州自然历史调查）-选择小孢子虫。 学员将指导高中实习生从密西西比学校数学和科学（哥伦布），以及那些从GCRL的附属机构和历史上的黑人学院和大学（HBCU）招募。这些实习生将获得寄生虫分类学和系统学的研究经验。K-8学生将触摸和观察沿海MS的海洋共生体和寄生虫，公众将在海洋教育中心和水族馆（比洛西，MS）提供系列讲座。原产国博物馆，费城科学院和GCRL博物馆将通过沉积鱼类和无脊椎动物代金券来加强。研究结果将通过以下方式传播：1）在同行评审文献中出版四本专著，2）在科学会议上介绍新发现，3）主办Digenean系统学研讨会，4）制作光盘，5）在http：//digenea.com/上启动NSF-PEET单孔动物分类学和系统学网站，6）在GenBank中登记分子序列，7）将网站编入全球物种数据库索引。每项活动都确保寄生虫学领域内外科学知识的进步，同时促进GCRL寄生虫学部门成为扁形虫生物多样性研究和生态学的重点。

Headquartered at the Parasitology Section of The Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL, The University of Southern Mississippi's Ocean Springs campus), this project establishes and strengthens an international network of over 30 parasitologists, ichthyologists, educators, curators, and students at ten universities and government organizations in seven states and ten countries. The project will preserve and revitalize taxonomic expertise in a megadiverse group of soft-bodied flatworms, flukes (Platyhelminthes: Digenea), and focuses on a family of flukes (Haploporidae) comprised of members that infect the gut of herbivorous fishes in fresh and marine waters worldwide. The project will train a minimum of three PhD students and two post-doctoral fellows to 1) monograph the four subfamilies of Haploporidae, 2) translate and globally disseminate newly-generated taxonomic expertise, and 3) recruit, educate, and inspire the next generation of digenean taxonomists. Each trainee will be a journeyman charged with actively participating in all aspects of their research and ultimately producing an exemplary, gold-standard monograph for their group. The need for such decisive actions is clear. A lineage of elder statesmen in digenean taxonomy nears extinction as professors die or retire before being replaced in their field; few can identify or properly collect and fix specimens; and young students are learning neither the craft of alpha taxonomy nor proper specimen preparation techniques. New haploporids will be collected from the under-explored regions of South America, southern Africa, Middle East, Indo-Pacific, and Australia. Morphological characteristics will be augmented by molecular data with help from the Gene Array Technology Laboratory (USM, GCRL) and Dr Vasyl Tkach (University of North Dakota, Grand Forks). The Gulf Coast Geospatial Center (USM) will generate GIS maps of collection sites. Other parasites will be routed to other taxonomic authorities; Dr George Benz (Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro)- fish copepods, Dr Delane Kritsky (University of Idaho)- select monogeneans, and Dr Leellen Solter (Illinois Natural History Survey)- select microsporans. Trainees will mentor high school interns from The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science (Columbus) as well as those recruited from GCRL-affiliates and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). These interns will obtain research experiences in parasite taxonomy and systematics. K-8 students will touch and observe marine symbionts and parasites of coastal MS, and the public will be offered a lecture series at the Marine Education Center and Aquarium (Biloxi, MS). Country-of-origin museums, The Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, and The GCRL Museum will be enhanced by deposition of fish and invertebrate vouchers. The results will be disseminated by 1) publishing four monographs in the peer-reviewed literature, 2) presenting new discoveries at scientific meetings, 3) hosting The Digenean Systematics Workshop, 4) producing a CD-ROM, 5) launching The NSF-PEET Haploporid Taxonomy and Systematics Website at http://digenea.com/, 6) accessioning molecular sequences in GenBank and 7) indexing the website as a Global Species Database. Each activity ensures advancement of scientific knowledge within and beyond the field of parasitology while simultaneously promoting The GCRL Parasitology Unit as a focus for platyhelminth biodiversity studies and ecology.