Objective This project makes full use of the experience, skills and contacts acquired during my postdoctoral stay abroad, allowing me to combine the expertise of three recognized institutes: The Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium, and the Natural History Museum London. This combination unites basic biological science, fisheries and aquaculture (KUL), parasitology and epidemiology (ITG and NHM), and genomics and population genetics (KUL). Such a multidisciplinary approach is becoming increasingly important in grasping complex problems like the epidemiology of parasitic diseases.Despite its enormous importance and huge potential, population genetic studies on helminth parasites are very rare. Amongst the three major components of a host-parasite interaction, the abiotic environment, host genetics and parasite genetics, the latter has been the least studied. We need to know how genotypes are distributed within and among parasite populations, and the epidemiological factors that determine these distributions. Here we apply a comparative approach by concentrating on two parasite groups that differ in important life history traits: Gyrodactylus spp. are ectoparasitic on teleosts (causing major problems in aquaculture), and Schistosoma spp. are endoparasites of mammals (of which humans, causing Bilharziosis). We will study the population genetic structure by means of microstatellite studies and sequencing of variable mtDNA fragments. By comparing the obtained results, we will be able to identify the factors that structure parasite populations.Apart from answering fundamental questions necessary to study the theory of speciation, there will be an added applied value to the obtained results. Uncovering transmission dynamics is crucial in studying the epidemiology of Schistosoma and Gyrodactylus spp., and population genetics studies are needed to study the effect of disease management on the evolution of parasite populations. Fields of science medical and health scienceshealth sciencestropical medicineagricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesfisheriesnatural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsmedical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiologysocial sciencessociologydemographyhuman migrations Keywords Bilharziose Gyrodactylus epidemiology evolution micro micro-evolution microsatellites mitochondrial markers phylogeography population dynamics speciation Programme(s) FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006 Topic(s) MOBILITY-4.1 - Marie Curie European Reintegration Grants (ERG) Call for proposal FP6-2004-MOBILITY-11 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERG - Marie Curie actions-European Re-integration Grants Coordinator CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN EU contribution No data Address Oude Markt 13 LEUVEN Belgium See on map Links Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
