CSBR: NATURAL HISTORY: DIGITIZING AND CONSERVING SPECIMENS IN THE MANTER LABORATORY OF PARASITOLOGY

内布拉斯加州大学的哈罗德·w·曼特寄生虫学实验室（HWML）是一个国际生物资源，支持生态学、生物多样性和传染病的研究和教育。HWML拥有来自各大洲和海洋的数百万个标本，是寄生虫研究的中心，使科学家能够做出生物学预测，例如环境变化如何影响寄生虫分布，这可能影响人类健康、农业、林业和其他社会利益。这些藏品还可以作为教育资源，通过虚拟实地考察和博物馆展览向公众提供科学研究。该项目旨在确保并数字化提供最近获得的两个寄生虫收集，并购买一个新的冷冻室来容纳HWML的野生动物寄生虫冷冻组织收集，这是世界上最大的。该奖项将使该中心继续作为寄生虫学的国际资源，并为本科生和当地科学教师提供研究机会，以及开发生物多样性教学资源。HWML的使命是开展和支持寄生虫系统学、分类学和生物多样性的研究；寄生虫生物多样性的培养研究；为寄生虫基因组、遗传和系统发育研究提供最先进的实验室设施和资源；促进实验室寄生物标本的长期保存和利用。该项目将完成两个最近获得的藏品与HWML馆藏的全面整合：Hopla跳蚤收藏，其中包含世界各地300多种跳蚤；Gettinger收藏，来自巴拉圭的外寄生虫收藏，包括数千种哺乳动物的宿主-寄生虫数据。资金还将允许HWML取代目前寄生虫基因组研究设施中失效的冷冻机，从而确保长期储存最大的野生动物寄生虫冷冻组织。这些藏品将被数字化，并通过生物多样性和自然历史藏品在线数据库Arctos提供，并与iDigBio共享（iDigBio.org）。世界各地的研究人员将能够访问和分析新的寄生虫数据，以深入了解生物多样性、物种率和一般进化过程。最后，资金将支持本科生和内布拉斯加州教师在HWML的研究机会，并开发资源，以支持教育工作者讲授生物多样性。预期的结果是，科学家将有更好的能力来理解、预测和应对加速环境变化的结果，并利用博物馆的发生记录来估计寄生虫的地理范围。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology (HWML) at the University of Nebraska is an international biological resource that supports research and education in ecology, biological diversity, and infectious disease. Housing millions of specimens from all continents and oceans, the HWML is a hub for the study of parasites, and enables scientists to make biological predictions, such as how environmental change might affect parasite distributions, which can impact human health, agriculture, forestry and other societal interests. This collection also serves as educational resources to make scientific research accessible to the public through virtual field trips and museum exhibitions. This project aims to secure and make digitally available two recently acquired parasite collections, and to purchase a new freezer to house the HWML's frozen tissue collection of parasites from wild animals, the largest worldwide. This award will enable the HWML to continue to serve as an international resource in parasitology and will also support research opportunities in the collections for undergraduate students and local science teachers, and the development of biodiversity teaching resources.The HWML's mission is to conduct and support research in parasite systematics, taxonomy, and biodiversity; foster studies in parasite biodiversity; provide state-of-the-art laboratory facilities and resources for parasite genomic, genetic, and phylogenetic research; and promote long-term conservation and utilization of parasite specimens in the laboratory's care. This project will complete full integration of two recently acquired collections into the HWML's holdings: the Hopla flea collection, which contains more than 300 species of fleas worldwide, and the Gettinger collection, a collection of ectoparasites from Paraguay that includes host-parasite data from several thousand mammals. Funding will also allow the HWML to replace a currently failing freezer in the Parasite Genomic Research Facility, thus securing long-term storage for the largest frozen tissue collection of parasites from wild animals anywhere. These collections will be digitized and made available via Arctos, an online database for biodiversity and natural history collections, and shared with iDigBio (iDigBio.org). Researchers worldwide will be able to access and analyze new parasite data to gain insight into biological diversity, species rates, and general evolutionary processes. Finally, funding will support research opportunities in the HWML for undergraduates and Nebraska teachers and the development of resources to support educators in teaching about biodiversity. The expected outcome is that scientists will have improved capability to understand, anticipate, and respond to the outcomes of accelerating environmental change, and to leverage museum occurrence records to estimate geographic ranges of parasites.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.