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多样化的寄生虫，其中一些会在人类和我们在全球种植和收获作为食物的动物中引起严重疾病。对鱼血吸虫的系统修正？(Dienea：Aporocoylidae)将为建立全面而强大的系统发育奠定基础，该系统发展将测试有关扁虫及其脊椎动物宿主的地理分布、共同进化以及双基因扁虫复杂生活史的起源的假说。此外，作为一个基本的血吸虫谱系，解开无尾子叶动物的系统发育关系可能有助于进一步揭示四足血吸虫的进化起源。这项为期三年的修订系统学计划将产生首个鱼类血吸虫的全球分类系统。孢子藻是在全世界范围内感染的海水、河口和淡水鱼中新出现的重要水产养殖病原体。鱼血吸虫是水生的对应物，与血吸虫关系密切，血吸虫寄生在鸟类和哺乳动物身上，包括那些导致2000万人感染血吸虫病的动物。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在扁虫(扁平线虫门)分类学和分类学方面的研究。

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.