REVSYS: Revisionary systematics and phylogeny of the fish blood flukes (Digenea: Aporocotylidae).

扁虫是系统和进化研究的有趣对象，因为它们是生态和系统发育上多样化的寄生虫，其中一些会导致人类和我们在全球种植和收获的动物的严重疾病。对？鱼血吸虫？（Digenea: Aporocotylidae）将支持一个全面而有力的系统发育的发展，该系统发育将测试关于地理分布、扁虫及其脊椎动物宿主的共同进化以及digenean扁虫复杂生命周期起源的假设。此外，作为基础血吸虫谱系，解决载尾虫的系统发育关系可能有助于进一步揭示四足动物血吸虫的进化起源。这个为期三年的修订系统项目将产生第一个鱼血吸虫的全球分类系统。载子叶虫包括在海洋、河口和淡水鱼中出现的、重要的水产养殖疾病病原体，它们感染世界各地。鱼血吸虫是寄生在鸟类和哺乳动物身上的血吸虫的水生对应体和近亲，包括那些导致2000万人患血吸虫病的血吸虫。该项目联合了来自美国和澳大利亚的研究人员，同时培训了两名博士生和几名本科生，研究扁形虫（门）的分类学和系统学。

Flatworms are intriguing subjects for systematic and evolutionary studies because they are ecologically and phylogenetically diverse parasites, some of which cause serious disease in humans and in the animals we grow and harvest as food globally. A systematic revision of the ?fish blood flukes? (Digenea: Aporocotylidae) will underpin the development of a comprehensive and robust phylogeny that tests hypotheses about geographic distribution, coevolution of flatworms and their vertebrate hosts, and the origin of complex life cycles in digenean flatworms. In addition, as a basal blood fluke lineage, resolving phylogenetic relationships of aporocotylids may help further reveal the evolutionary origins of tetrapod blood flukes.This three-year revisionary systematics project will produce the first global classification system for the fish blood flukes. Aporocotylids comprise emerging, significant aquaculture disease agents among the marine, estuarine, and freshwater fishes they infect worldwide. Fish blood flukes are the aquatic counterpart and close relative to schistosomes that parasitize birds and mammals, including those causing schistosomiasis in 20 million people. This project unites researchers from the US and Australia while simultaneously training two PhD students and several undergraduates in flatworm (phylum Platyhelminthes) taxonomy and systematics.