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Project title

Integrated Monitoring of PArasites in Changing EnvironmenTs

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

National Parks & Wildlife Services (NPWS)

Lead Organisation

Atlantic Technological University (ATU)

Lead Applicant

Katie O'Dwyer

Project Abstract

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 address 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; develop an innovative molecular tool kit for integrating fish parasite diversity assessments into 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 a framework to facilitate the explicit inclusion of parasites in national and international biodiversity management and conservation strategies. The ambitious goals envisaged in IMPACT can only be achieved with a collaboration between scientists and stakeholders empowering and maximizing the synergies between countries, viewpoints and expertise, and in doing so, building a foundation for improved transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change for policy and society.

Grant Approved

�78,000.00

Research Hub

Natural Environment

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

02/01/2024

Initial Projected Completion Date

01/01/2027