Headquartered at the Parasitology Section of The Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL, The University of Southern Mississippi's Ocean Springs campus), this project establishes and strengthens an international network of over 30 parasitologists, ichthyologists, educators, curators, and students at ten universities and government organizations in seven states and ten countries. The project will preserve and revitalize taxonomic expertise in a megadiverse group of soft-bodied flatworms, flukes (Platyhelminthes: Digenea), and focuses on a family of flukes (Haploporidae) comprised of members that infect the gut of herbivorous fishes in fresh and marine waters worldwide. The project will train a minimum of three PhD students and two post-doctoral fellows to 1) monograph the four subfamilies of Haploporidae, 2) translate and globally disseminate newly-generated taxonomic expertise, and 3) recruit, educate, and inspire the next generation of digenean taxonomists. Each trainee will be a journeyman charged with actively participating in all aspects of their research and ultimately producing an exemplary, gold-standard monograph for their group. The need for such decisive actions is clear. A lineage of elder statesmen in digenean taxonomy nears extinction as professors die or retire before being replaced in their field; few can identify or properly collect and fix specimens; and young students are learning neither the craft of alpha taxonomy nor proper specimen preparation techniques. New haploporids will be collected from the under-explored regions of South America, southern Africa, Middle East, Indo-Pacific, and Australia. Morphological characteristics will be augmented by molecular data with help from the Gene Array Technology Laboratory (USM, GCRL) and Dr Vasyl Tkach (University of North Dakota, Grand Forks). The Gulf Coast Geospatial Center (USM) will generate GIS maps of collection sites. Other parasites will be routed to other taxonomic authorities; Dr George Benz (Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro)- fish copepods, Dr Delane Kritsky (University of Idaho)- select monogeneans, and Dr Leellen Solter (Illinois Natural History Survey)- select microsporans.
Trainees will mentor high school interns from The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science (Columbus) as well as those recruited from GCRL-affiliates and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). These interns will obtain research experiences in parasite taxonomy and systematics. K-8 students will touch and observe marine symbionts and parasites of coastal MS, and the public will be offered a lecture series at the Marine Education Center and Aquarium (Biloxi, MS). Country-of-origin museums, The Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, and The GCRL Museum will be enhanced by deposition of fish and invertebrate vouchers. The results will be disseminated by 1) publishing four monographs in the peer-reviewed literature, 2) presenting new discoveries at scientific meetings, 3) hosting The Digenean Systematics Workshop, 4) producing a CD-ROM, 5) launching The NSF-PEET Haploporid Taxonomy and Systematics Website at http://digenea.com/, 6) accessioning molecular sequences in GenBank and 7) indexing the website as a Global Species Database. Each activity ensures advancement of scientific knowledge within and beyond the field of parasitology while simultaneously promoting The GCRL Parasitology Unit as a focus for platyhelminth biodiversity studies and ecology.
