Integrated Monitoring of PArasites in Changing EnvironmenTs (IMPACT)

寄生虫被归类为生物恶棍，由于它们对人类健康和野生动物保护的威胁，尽管大多数后生动物寄生虫没有人畜共患病的潜力，并构成了当前生物多样性的绝大多数比例。毫不奇怪，寄生虫仍然是生物多样性管理策略中最被忽视的组成部分，并且完全没有参与保护讨论，不像它们更有魅力的自由生活宿主。此外，寄生虫的减少和消失很少是长期或分布监测计划的重点，寄生虫作为综合生物指标的价值仍然没有得到充分利用，因为缺乏具有成本效益的监测工具来检测大规模的生物多样性变化。IMPACT项目旨在实现提供循证知识的总体目标，以支持将寄生虫纳入水生生物多样性监测指令和环境决策。具体而言，IMPACT将确定欧洲淡水鱼寄生虫生物多样性的时空状况和长期趋势;探索多样性的不同方面，并建立一个标本和分子条形码的精选参考图书馆，以促进淡水鱼寄生虫的识别;严格评价eDNA作为评估水生生物多样性监测中鱼类寄生虫多样性的综合工具;并了解利益相关者对寄生虫的看法及其在环境治理中的作用。随后，IMPACT将与相关利益攸关方和社会团体共同制定一个框架，以促进将寄生虫明确纳入国家和国际生物多样性管理和保护战略，从而打破将寄生虫纳入跨国生物多样性和生态系统变化监测的主要障碍。只有科学家和利益攸关方携手合作，才能实现IMPACT中设想的宏伟目标，方法是增强各国、观点和专门知识之间的能力并最大限度地发挥它们之间的协同作用，同时为改善跨国监测生物多样性和生态系统变化的政策和社会工作奠定基础。

Parasites are typecast as biological villains due to their threats to human health and wildlife conservation, despite most metazoan parasites having no zoonotic potential, and constituting an overwhelming proportion of current biodiversity. Unsurprisingly, parasites remain the most neglected components of biodiversity management strategies, and completely absent from conservation discussions, unlike their more charismatic free-living hosts. Furthermore, the decline and disappearance of parasites is seldom a focus in long-term or distribution monitoring programs, and the value of parasites as integrative biological indicators remains under-exploited due to the lack of cost-effective monitoring tools for detecting broad-scale biodiversity changes. The IMPACT project aims to achieve the overall goal of providing evidence-based knowledge to support the integration of parasites into aquatic biodiversity monitoring directives and environmental decision making. Specifically, IMPACT will determine the spatial-temporal status and long-term trends of European freshwater fish parasite biodiversity; explore different facets of diversity, and establish a curated reference library of specimens and molecular barcodes to facilitate identification of freshwater fish parasites; critically evaluate eDNA as an integrative tool for assessing fish parasite diversity in aquatic biodiversity monitoring; and gain knowledge about stakeholders’ perceptions of parasites and their role in environmental governance. Subsequently, IMPACT will break down key barriers to the inclusion of parasites in transnational biodiversity and ecosystem change monitoring by co-developing with relevant stakeholders and society groups a framework to facilitate the explicit inclusion of parasites in national and international biodiversity management and conservation strategies. Only a hand-in-hand collaboration between scientists and stakeholders can achieve the ambitious goals envisaged in IMPACT via empowering and maximizing the synergies between countries, viewpoints and expertise, and in doing so, building the foundations for improved transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change for policy and society.