EAPSI: Revealing Mammalian Biodiversity with Leech Blood Meals

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Terrestrial leech blood meals are excellent at revealing rare and unknown mammal diversity. Researches have identified a variety of mammals by sampling blood meals of leeches, including species recently discovered, likely threatened, near threatened, and unknown to a sampling area (despite attempts to find individuals), as well as a cryptic species that requires DNA to identify. The substantial and growing scientific infrastructure and expertise in China make it ideal for forging life-long collaborations, while utilizing this new blood meal method to uncover cryptic biodiversity. Dr. Doug Yu at the Kunming Institute of Zoology in Yunnan Province, China will supervise this project. Yunnan is an exceptional target site for mammal conservation, as it is houses half of China's mammals, the majority of China's protected species, and is already a major focus for existing conservation programs. China is also known for an exceptional diversity and high abundance of terrestrial leeches, yet reconstructions of the terrestrial leech tree of life are largely devoid of Chinese samples.This project will test three hypotheses: 1) blood meals are a novel, efficient tool for surveying and finding mammalian biodiversity in Yunnan; 2) terrestrial leeches display host specificity; and 3) Yunnan terrestrial leech biodiversity is vastly underestimated. DNA from leeches and their blood meals will be sequenced using amplicon based next-generation sequencing. Mammal hosts determined from these sequences will be compared to park checklists, testing this method's efficacy for surveying mammalian biodiversity. Leech host specificity will be tested using statistical analyses. The most extensively sampled terrestrial leech tree of life will be constructed, using sequences from this study and prior research, to test the accuracy of current classifications. This also will aid in identification of new species like the recently described Yunnan cave leech. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.