Parasites have a public relations problem.
Unlike the many charismatic mammals, fishes and birds that receive our attention (and our conservation dollars), parasites are thought of as something to eradicate and certainly not something to protect.
But only 4% of known parasites can infect humans, and the majority actually serve critical ecological roles, like regulating wildlife that might otherwise balloon in population size and become pests. Still, only about 10% of parasites have been identified and, as a result, they are mostly left out of conservation activities and research.
An international group of scientists wants to change that. About a dozen leading parasite ecologists, including University of Washington’s Chelsea Wood, published a paper Aug. 1 in the journal Biological Conservation, which lays out an ambitious global conservation plan for parasites.
Parasites are an incredibly diverse group of species, but as a society, we do not recognize this biological diversity as valuable, said Wood, an assistant professor in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. The point of this paper is to emphasize that we are losing parasites and the functions they serve without even recognizing it.
The authors propose 12 goals for the next decade that could advance parasite biodiversity conservation through a mix of
research, advocacy and management.
Parasites often need two or more host species to complete their lifecycle. For example, some parasites first infect fish or amphibians, but ultimately must get transmitted to birds to reproduce and multiply. They ensure that this happens through ingenious ways, Wood explained, often by manipulating the behavior or even the anatomy of their first host to make these fish or amphibians more susceptible to being eaten by birds. In this way, the parasite then gets transmitted to a bird its ultimate destination.
By dissecting museum specimens of fish, the researchers are identifying and counting various parasites found in the specimens at different places and times.
These pickled animals are like parasite time capsules, Wood explained. We can open them up and identify the parasites that infected a fish at its death. In this way, we can reconstruct and resurrect information that previously we didn’t think was possible to get.
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