CAREER: Reconstructing Parasite Abundance in River Ecosystems Over the Past Half Century

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This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Are the parasites that cause many infectious diseases increasing or decreasing in abundance through time? This simple question is surprisingly difficult to answer because few data exist to document parasite burdens in the past. To circumvent this problem, parasite ecologists have developed and validated a new technique: they can now extract information on parasite burden from liquid-preserved specimens held in natural history collections. This innovation opens a massive opportunity to understand how the infectious disease landscape has shifted in the past 100 years, because millions of suitable liquid-preserved specimens exist that can provide snapshots of parasite burden at particular times and places. In this project, the researcher will use liquid-preserved fish to reconstruct long-term data on the abundance of parasites in river ecosystems of the US South and Southwest. This project will answer a long-standing question with pressing implications for society’s ability to manage infectious disease in wildlife, while simultaneously opening training opportunities for students to participate in, contribute to, and deeply engage with research on a fascinating group of organisms, the parasites. This project will address three fundamental questions in parasite ecology: (Q1) How has the abundance of parasites in river ecosystems changed over the past half century? (Q2) What roles have industrial pollution and urbanization played in shaping change in parasite abundance through time? (Q3) How do industrial pollution and urbanization affect the stability (i.e. resistance and resilience) of parasite communities as they experience other disturbances (e.g., drought)? The retrospective control–impact study design (i.e., before–after–control–impact study in which time is continuous rather than discrete) will allow the researcher to test for long-term temporal change in parasite burden and to identify the influence of anthropogenic impacts (e.g., industrial pollution, urbanization) and other disturbances (e.g., drought) on that long-term change. The researcher will incorporate these data into a newly redesigned course in Parasite Ecology that will be shared as an open educational resource and integrate eight undergraduate researchers into her research team, providing many opportunities for students to participate in hands-on research. This project will also result in the development of an open-access learning module that introduces concepts of parasite ecology to elementary-aged learners.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.