RUI: Biodiversity Inventory: Gregarines Parasitizing North American Cockroaches

该项目调查并记录了北美蟑螂及其寄生虫的生物多样性。这是自1917年以来对北美蟑螂的首次全面调查，该项目将发现并描述60-120种新的寄生虫物种。这些昆虫寄生虫虽然与人类的疟疾寄生虫密切相关，但不会感染脊椎动物。在北美已知的72种蟑螂中，只有8种会感染人类。该项目通过实地调查、准备永久性博物馆藏品以及生成和分析形态和分子数据，发现并记录蟑螂和gregarine的多样性。该项目通过对寄生虫发育的对照研究和寄生虫在宿主物种间的实验交叉感染，量化宿主物种多样性和环境对物种形成的影响，该项目探讨生物多样性的一个基本问题：宿主多样性和环境条件在寄生物种的形成和持续存在中发挥什么作用？这些问题是所有生物多样性调查的基础，它们的解决是理解生物多样性的形成和持久性以及快速发现和描述新物种的技术的关键。实际上，该项目建立了一个标本库，以调查和监测气候变化对生物多样性的影响：蟑螂的分布受到气候的限制，但几乎世纪没有被调查过。PI是在一个小的，农村，本科院校。 该项目将培养几名本科生，他们可能会选择从事科学职业，这是他们研究经验的直接结果。

The project surveys and documents the biodiversity of North American cockroaches and their gregarine parasites. This is the first comprehensive survey of North American cockroaches since 1917 and the project will discover and describe 60-120 new parasite species. These parasites of insects, although closely related to the malarial parasites of humans, do not infect vertebrates. Of the 72 cockroach species known in North America, only 8 infest humans. The project discovers and documents cockroach and gregarine diversity through field survey, preparation of permanent museum collections, and the generation and analysis of morphological and molecular data. The project quantifies the effects of host species diversity and the environment on speciation using controlled studies of parasite development and experimental cross-infection of parasites among host species.The project examines a basic question of biodiversity: what roles do host diversity and environmental conditions play in the formation and persistence of parasitic species? These questions underlie all biodiversity survey and their solution is key to understanding the formation and persistence of biodiversity as well as techniques for rapidly discovering and describing new species. Pragmatically, the project builds a specimen base to investigate and monitor the effects of climate change on biodiversity: cockroach distributions are delimited by climate but have not been surveyed in almost a century. The PI is in a small, rural, undergraduate institution. The project will train several undergraduate students who will likely choose to pursue careers in science as a direct result of their research experience.