Collaborative Research: Southern Amazonian birds and their symbionts: Biodiversity and endemicity of parasites from the most diverse avifauna on Earth

该项目涉及来自美国、巴西、保加利亚和乌克兰的几位寄生虫学家，他们将合作调查、研究、描述和存档巴西亚马逊南部五个地理上孤立的地区（特有地区）与鸟类有关的寄生虫。这项研究将包括收集和存放博物馆标本进行研究，并将利用鸟类及其寄生虫的物理特征和遗传数据来描述世界上最丰富的生态系统中这一鲜为人知的生物多样性部分。据估计，亚马逊流域面积超过650万平方公里，拥有世界上十分之一以上的物种。巴西亚马逊地区拥有地球上最多样化的鸟类群（约1300种），但亚马逊鸟类的寄生虫群几乎完全没有被研究过。寄生虫种类繁多，占地球生命的30-70%。这个项目有许多重要的社会效益。首先，这项工作促进了美国和巴西研究人员和学生之间的国际合作，他们将在这些机构之间进行教学，学习，工作和合作，以进一步了解鸟类及其寄生虫。对美国和巴西的研究生和本科生进行多样化的培训（包括代表性不足的群体），将增加研究未被充分研究的寄生虫群体的专业知识。这项研究也将具有长期价值，因为众所周知，寄生虫对其宿主（包括人类和其他动物）的健康、行为、人口统计和进化有重要影响。众所周知，寄生虫会在宿主之间或宿主之间引起或传播疾病。因此，通过收集和归档所收集的材料的现代方法，本研究将采用尖端的研究方法，为我们对亚马逊地区鸟类寄生虫的多样性、分布和进化史的认识做出实质性的持久贡献，因此将对人类和野生动物的健康产生重要的影响。最后，这项研究是一项新颖的合作努力，旨在收集保护亚马逊生物多样性所需的数据，亚马逊是地球上最丰富的动物。

This project involves several parasitologists from the USA, Brazil, Bulgaria, and Ukraine that will collaborate to survey, study, describe, and archive parasites associated with birds in five geographically isolated regions (areas of endemism) of southern Amazonian Brazil. The research will involve collection and deposition of museum specimens for research and will use both physical characteristics and genetic data from both the birds and their parasites to describe this poorly known segment of biological diversity in the world's richest ecosystem. At over 6.5 million km2, Amazonia is estimated to harbor more than one tenth of the world's species. Brazilian Amazonia harbors the most diverse bird fauna on earth (~1300 species), yet the parasite fauna of Amazonian birds is almost completely unstudied. Parasites are incredibly diverse and make up 30-70% of life on earth. This project has a number of important societal benefits. First, this work fosters international collaboration between US and Brazilian researchers and students, who will travel between these institutions to teach, learn, work, and collaborate to further the understanding of birds and their parasites. Training of a diverse pool (including underrepresented groups) of US and Brazilian graduate and undergraduate students will augment the diminishing pool of expertise working on understudied parasite groups. This study also will have long-term value because parasites are known to have important consequences on the health, behavior, demography, and evolution of their hosts (including humans and other animals). Parasites are known to cause or spread disease among and between hosts. Thus, through modern approaches to gathering and archiving the material collected, this study will employ cutting edge research to make substantial lasting contributions to our knowledge of the diversity, distribution, and evolutionary history, of avian parasites in Amazonia, and therefore will have important human and wildlife health implications far into the future. Lastly, this research is a novel collaborative effort to gather data needed to conserve the biodiversity of the Amazon, the richest fauna on earth.