This project represents an integrated effort to document the terrestrial vertebrate biodiversity of the southern borderlands of China, one of the least well explored regions worldwide. Specialists working with birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians will staff the expeditions, accompanied by experts with various parasite groups (fleas, flies, ticks, lice, nematodes, cestodes, blood parasites, coccidia, etc.). The 5 expeditions will each focus on a different sector of the borderlands region, including the border areas with Laos, Vietnam, Burma, and northeastern India. Each specialist will use tools for inventory that are the 'state of the art' in his or her own field. The end result will be extensive series of specimens and other new biological material for detailed study, as well as numerous scientific publications documenting local vertebrate and parasite communities, taxonomic insights, and new species. Parasite specimens will be collected and stabilized, with a view towards long-term curation and eventual study. Project data will be served to the broader scientific community with maximum efficiency via Internet-based distributed database technology.
This project is near-unique in its broad-spectrum assessment of vertebrates and many groups of parasites. Such a view of vertebrates and the full (or at least a broad sample of the) diversity of their parasites is available from few places on Earth, making for a new view into the true biological richness of an area. In the case of the Chinese southern borderlands, not only will many of the parasites be unknown to science, but even some or many of the vertebrate hosts as well. Many new insights into the conservation of biological diversity will come from such detailed views of the nature of this diversity. This information will go beyond the quick-and-easy vertebrate-based conservation priorities that currently dominate conservation biology to provide a detailed view of the true dimensions of biological diversity in a complex and little-known region.
Biodiversity is exceedingly complex, with tens of millions of species distributed around the world. Comprehending this diversity is an enormous challenge--indeed, after three centuries of effort towards documenting the full dimensions of biodiversity, the task is only about 3-10% complete. This project took on two realms of biodiversity that remain very poorly known: the People's Republic of China and the world of parasites. More specifically, this project aimed to inventory and document the terrestrial vertebrates of southern China--birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians--and their associated parasites. Among the latter--parasite species that are associated with each vertebrate--we have documented and studied lice, fleas, flies, mites, ticks, acanthocephalans, nematodes, cestodes, trematodes, leeches, coccidian, hematozoa, and avian influenza viruses from each vertebrate that we collected. In this way, our documentation of the biodiversity of southern China is quite rich--terrestrial vertebrates and many of the associated parasite species. Indeed, even though the grant included no funding for study of the specimens that were collected, already, 2 genera of parasites 16 species of parasites, and 4 species of mammals have been described as new to science, and many more remain to be documented. These results are important for the science side (i.e., insights into the dimensions of biodiversity in the region), and indeed now constitutes one of the better-documented vertebrate-and-parasite faunas worldwide. The results of this study are important even beyond basic science. In particular, our studies of parasites associated with Chinese vertebrates are quite important to human public health. For example, our studies of influenza viruses in birds were carried out in the 'hot zone' during the peak of the spread of the dangerous H5N1 virus. Even though the then-current idea was that these viruses were hosted exclusively by waterbirds, our work showed influenza viruses being hosted broadly across all birds, which changes dramatically the dynamics that can be expected from flu viruses in Asia and worldwide. Similarly, our work with landscape correlates of parasite prevalences has illuminated the circumstances under which vertebrates have greater parasite infections, again with important public health implications. This study illustrates the value of basic and fundamental studies of biodiversity that are documented fully by rich specimen material. The material that has resulted from this project has been used in dozens of additional studies, and not just by our research group--rather, the specimens returning from the expeditions are loaned and made available to the broader scientific community. In this way, NSF investments in basic biodiversity science are magnified broadly, and affect and stimulate many other research groups.
