Survey of the Parasites of Small Mammals of the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge

位于新墨西哥州中部的塞维利亚国家野生动物保护区（SNWR）占地10万公顷，位于西南部几个主要生物群落的过渡区：大盆地灌木草原，莫戈隆松杜松林地，大平原草原和奇瓦瓦沙漠。 1989-1994年，我们与新墨西哥州大学长期生态学研究（LTER）合作，在该地区三种主要生境（草地、荒漠/杂酚油、林地）的固定采样点共采集啮齿动物4科28种，共计3,235只。 对样本进行尸检，检查是否存在体内寄生虫（原生动物球虫、蠕虫）和一些体外寄生虫。 该项目将识别和分析在这些宿主中发现的所有寄生虫，并将在本研究的未来三年内继续收集宿主。 到1998年，该项目将建立各种手段，以便容易地查明和监测到2000年根据LTER第二阶段赠款捕获的所有哺乳动物宿主的寄生虫，并在随后的延长中永久有效。 收集的数据将是独特的，原因如下：1）这将是第一次完整地清点三个不同群落中所有哺乳动物（啮齿动物）宿主的寄生虫自然组合，每个群落形成一个明确定义的地理位置（生境类型）在十年期间及以后; 2）本研究是多学科方法的一部分，以解决气候变化对生态系统结构和功能在多个尺度（个人，社区等）的概念问题。来自这些相关研究的相关数据将加强并有助于该数据集的稳健性;和3）作为全国范围内LTER项目中唯一的寄生虫研究，它将为在各种其他栖息地类型中检查寄生虫群落的平行长期研究提供一个理想的模型，也许是激励，并形成各种不同的观点，在网络中的其他LTER站点。 完成这项工作后，项目团队将能够使用这些长期数据来尝试了解自然宿主-寄生虫组合的动态。 然后，可以建立假设来测试/解决至少一些问题：不同的寄生虫群落如何随着时间的推移殖民，成熟，高潮和衰老（或者他们？）？ 它们是否因非生物（气候变化）和/或生物（扩散、定居）因素而有所不同？ 什么样的时间/空间尺度，以及在什么样的生物，共同进化过程影响这些寄生虫的社区组织？ 多个共存物种的动态研究主要局限于田鼠啮齿动物，并暗示多年周期往往是同步的（Brown和Heske 1990）。 在我们的沙漠啮齿动物身上也能看到类似的模式吗？ 这些问题的答案有关的社区结构，以及有关寄生虫生物多样性的问题的SNWR，可以部分或全部解决的寄生虫物种感染收集的啮齿动物的SNWR上收集的信息。 工作的最初重点将是通过处理完成最终将是连续9年的寄生虫数据来识别收集的所有寄生虫，并培训参与寄生原生动物和蠕虫分类和命名艺术的本科生和研究生，开始提供其中一些答案。

The 100,000 ha Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR) in central New Mexico lies in a transition zone that straddles several major biomes of the Southwest: Great Basin Shrub-Steppe, Mogollon Pinon-Juniper Woodland, Great Plains Grassland and Chihuahuan Desert. In the past six years (1989-1994), collaborating with the University of New Mexico s Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, 3,235 rodents (28 species, in 4 families) were collected and identified from permanent collecting sites on the three major habitat types (grassland, desert/creosote, woodland) of the SNWR. Hosts were necropsied for endoparasites (protozoa coccidia , helminths) and some ectoparasites. This project will identify a nd analyze all the parasites found in these hosts and in hosts that will continue to be collected during the next three years of this study. By 1998, the project will have put in place the means to easily identify and monitor the parasites form all mammalian hosts caught through the year 2000 on the LTER Phase II grant, and into perpetuity on subsequent renewals. The data to be collected will be unique for several reasons: 1) This will be the first complete inventory of a natural assemblage of parasites form all mammalian (rodent) hosts in three different communities, each form a distinctly defined geographic locality (habitat type) over the period of a decade, and beyond; 2) This study is part of a multidisciplinary approach to address conceptual issues of climate change on ecosystem structure and function at multiple scales (individuals, communities, etc.) and correlative data from these related studies will strengthen and contribute to the robustness of this data set; and 3) As the only parasite study on any of the LTER projects nationwide, it will provide an ideal model, and perhaps incentive, for parallel long-term studies of parasite communities to be examined in a variety of other habitat types, and form a variety of different perspectives, at other LTER sites in the network. Upon completing this work the project team will be able to use these long-term data to try to understand the dynamics of natural host-parasite assemblages. Hypotheses then can be erected to test/address at least questions: How do the different parasite communities colonize, mature, climax and senesce over time (or do they?)? Do they vary in response to abiotic ( climate change) and/or biotic (dispersal, colonization) factors? What temporal/spatial scales, and among what kinds of organisms, do coevolutionary processes influence the community organization of these parasites? Studies of the dynamics of multiple, coexisting species are confined primarily to microtine rodents and have hinted that multiannual cyc les tend to be synchronous (Brown and Heske 1990). Are similar patterns seen for parasites of our desert rodents? Answers to these questions relating to community structure, as well as to questions concerning parasite biodiversity on the SNWR, can be addressed partially or completely by the information gathered on the parasite species infecting rodents collected on the SNWR. Initial emphasis of the work will be on identifying all the parasites collected, by processing to completion what will eventually be 9 consecutive years of parasite data, and on training the undergraduate and graduate students involved in the art of taxonomy and nomenclature of parasitic protozoans and helminths, to begin to supply some of these answers.