Collaborative Research: STEPP-NET: Steppe Parasite Networks

合作研究：STEPP-NET：草原寄生虫网络

• 批准号: 2120467
• 负责人: Bryan McLean
• 金额: $ 22.46万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina Greensboro
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-08-15 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2120467&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; STEPP; NET; Steppe

This project focuses on collecting and describing mammals and their tapeworm and flea parasites from the grasslands of Central Asia. These parasites are highly diverse and ecologically important groups, and many are sensitive indicators of ecosystem quality; further, the parasitic infections they cause can have major negative impacts on wildlife. They also can play an important role in transmitting diseases from wild to domesticated species, and also to humans. However, knowledge of the diversity of parasite species, their geographic distributions, and the precise hosts they occur on and in remains highly fragmentary for much of the world. Central Asian mammals and their associated parasites are particularly highly imperiled but also little studied. This project will collect new material and study how tapeworm and flea parasites from the region evolve in conjunction with their mammalian hosts; it will also consider how the hosts and parasites have responded to various ecological changes across the region. This work is extremely time-sensitive, with many Central Asian ecosystems on the cusp of major land use change as economies shift and major construction occurs in the region. Numerous specimens will be collected, and these will serve as a repository of parasite diversity useful for assessing how future global change influences the distribution of parasites and their hosts. This may ultimately improve public health outcomes. The work will also involve training the next generation of early-career STEM researchers for careers in biodiversity science. The STEPP-NET project will rapidly advance discovery and description of species diversity, host associations, and community assembly, in two mammal-associated macroparasite clades - fleas and cestodes - across the vast grasslands of Central Asia. This region is a prototype for exploring host-parasite dynamics and spillover in response to human activity; historically, as a conduit for ancient Silk Road trade routes, and, currently, from intensifying land use changes and construction. STEPP-NET leverages existing museum specimens, new expeditionary collections in Mongolia and Kazakhstan, and genomic analyses of hosts and parasites to advance knowledge of species boundaries, environmental and host niche breadth, and the exploration of novel host interfaces by focal parasite clades in response to global change pressures. A key outcome of STEPP-NET will be an extended specimen network for Central Asia, in which mammal and parasite specimens are durably linked to derived data and immediately useful in global biodiversity studies and public health initiatives. The project also creates opportunities for STEM graduate and undergraduate students to participate across the spectrum of modern biodiversity science, from international fieldwork to specimen curation and digitization, genomics, and integrative taxonomy. It will build out this community of early-career STEM researchers even further by developing undergraduate and graduate educational modules that are implemented across our institutions and hosted online for broader biodiversity literacy.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.

该项目着重于收集和描述中亚草原的哺乳动物及其tap虫和跳蚤寄生虫。 这些寄生虫是高度多样化和生态上重要的群体，许多寄生虫是生态系统质量的敏感指标。此外，它们引起的寄生虫感染可能会对野生动植物产生重大的负面影响。他们还可以在从野生物种到人类传播疾病中发挥重要作用。 但是，了解寄生虫物种的多样性，它们的地理分布以及它们出现在世界上大部分地区的精确宿主。 中亚哺乳动物及其相关的寄生虫受到特别高度危害，但也很少研究。 该项目将收集新的材料，并研究该地区的tape虫和跳蚤寄生虫如何与哺乳动物宿主一起发展；它还将考虑寄主和寄生虫如何应对整个地区的各种生态变化。这项工作非常敏感，随着该地区经济转变和重大建设发生，许多中亚生态系统在主要土地使用变化的风口浪尖上。 将收集许多标本，这些标本将成为寄生虫多样性的存储库，可用于评估未来的全球变化如何影响寄生虫及其宿主的分布。 这最终可能会改善公共卫生结果。 这项工作还将涉及培训下一代的早期研究人员研究人员的生物多样性科学职业。 Stepp -Net项目将在两个与中亚广阔草原的两个哺乳动物相关的大型进化枝（跳蚤和Cestodes）中迅速提高物种多样性，寄主协会和社区集会的发现和描述。该区域是探索宿主 - 寄生虫动力学和溢出的原型，以应对人类活动。从历史上看，作为古老的丝绸之路贸易路线的渠道，目前是加强土地使用变化和建设的渠道。 Stepp-net利用现有的博物馆标本，蒙古和哈萨克斯坦的新探险系列，以及对宿主和寄生虫的基因组分析，以提高对物种边界的了解，环境和宿主壁iche宽度，以及探索新型寄主界面，探索对全球变化压力的焦点寄生虫群体对焦点寄生虫的界面的探索。 Stepp-NET的主要结果将是中亚的扩展标本网络，其中哺乳动物和寄生虫标本与派生数据持久链接，并且在全球生物多样性研究和公共卫生计划中立即有用。该项目还为STEM毕业生和本科生创造了机会，可以参与现代生物多样性科学的范围，从国际实地考察到标本策划和数字化，基因组学和综合分类学。它将通过开发本科和研究生教育模块的发展，在我们的机构中​​实施并在线托管以进行更广泛的生物多样性素养。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的智力功能和广泛的影响审查Criteria，它被认为是值得的，它将建立这一早期职业茎研究人员社区。