PEET: Monography of the Families of Hirudinea (Leeches) with On-line Databasing and Development of Electronic Keys: A Program to Train the Hirudinologists of the Future

[19329]西达尔和伯瑞森美国自然历史博物馆的马克·西达尔博士和他的合作伙伴、弗吉尼亚海洋科学研究所的尤金·伯瑞森博士正在合作评估和记录世界水蛭科（水蛭属蛭目，全世界估计有1000种）的生物多样性。这项工作的基础包括在世界各地的自然历史博物馆中对水蛭进行彻底的测定和摄影记录，以及对全球水蛭多样性高但研究较少的地区进行几次实地考察。这项工作是在生物医学界对水蛭重新产生兴趣的时候进行的，然而，这个领域正面临着失去那些致力于了解世界水蛭动物群范围的少数科学家的知识的危险。利用各种数据收集技术（形态学和分子序列数据）和数据分析算法，训练学生收集、鉴定和专著主要科的物种，并将信息汇编成一个世界范围内可访问的数据库，将分类群描述与与之相关的图像和出版物联系起来。水蛭出现在从陆地到海洋和淡水环境的栖息地，在所有大陆都有发现。水蛭在形态和行为上的显著多样性引起了几个生物学领域的兴趣。在过去的15年里，水蛭的生物医学用途有所增加，特别是在水蛭唾液中发现了强大的抗凝血剂和肿瘤抑制抗菌素的希望。水蛭在术后血肿治疗中的应用（毫不夸张地说）正在复兴。在显微外科手术中，它们的常规使用使组织重新附着后的愈合速度更快。水蛭也被广泛用于神经生物学和发育研究。到目前为止，只有两到三种水蛭被用于这些目的，主要是因为世界上的多样性和家庭关系还没有得到很好的了解（通常分别是欧洲和非洲的药用水蛭Hirudo medicinalis和Limnatis nilotica）。这项拨款旨在提供这些知识，并以全面的方式扩展其范围，同时培训新一代在环节动物系统学和生物学方面工作的分类专家。

0119329Siddall and Burreson Dr. Mark Siddall of the American Museum of Natural History and his co-PI Dr. Eugene Burreson of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science are collaborating to assess and document the biodiversity of leech families of the world (the annelid order Hirudinea, with an estimated 1000 species worldwide). The basis for this work involves thorough determination and photodocumentation of leeches in natural history museums worldwide as well as several field expeditions to regions of poorly studied but high leech diversity globally. This work comes at a time when leeches have experienced renewed interest from the biomedical community and yetthe field is in danger of losing the knowledge of those few scientists who have devoted themselves to understanding the scope of the world's hirudifauna. Using various data-gathering technologies (for morphological and molecular sequence data) and data-analyzing algorithms, students will be trained in collecting, identifying and monographing species in the principal families, and will compile the information in a world-wide accessible database connecting taxon descriptions with images and publications related to them. Leeches occur in habitats that range from terrestrial to both marine and freshwater environments and are found on all continents. The remarkable diversity in morphology and behavior of leeches has been of interest to several fields of biology. The last fifteen years have seen an increase in the biomedical utility of leeches especially the promise of finding powerful anticoagulants and tumor-inhibiting antistasins in leech saliva. Leeches are enjoying a renaissance in their application (quite literally)to post-operative hematomas. Their use routinely has led to faster healing following the reattachment of tissues with microsurgical procedures. Leeches also are used extensively in neurobiological and developmental studies. So far, only two or three species of leech are exploited for these purposes, largely because the world's diversity and family relationships are not well understood (usually Hirudo medicinalis and Limnatis nilotica, the European and African medicinal leeches respectively). This grant seeks to make available that knowledge and to extend its scope in a comprehensive manner, while training a new generation of taxonomic specialists working in annelid systematics and biology.