Tracking changes in biodiversity requires confident species identifications and reliable documentation of geographic occurrences. Natural history collections archive, maintain, and make accessible the reference specimens needed to identify species and the associated data to chronicle biodiversity through time. Therefore, collections play a crucial role in documenting shifts in host and geographic occurrences for animal and protozoan parasites at local and global scales. It is tempting to use the conservation status of host species as a proxy for conserving parasite diversity, but host status and trends do not fully represent the scope of pressures experienced by parasitic species. Animal parasites represent a substantial portion of Earth’s diversity, yet detailed data and specimens are underrepresented in collections relative to other taxa. We searched for information on parasite collections worldwide and online availability of specimen data. In particular, we recorded number of specimen lots, if host information was available, and if the specimen records are georeferenced.
Results/Conclusions
Internet searches and publications revealed 75 collections of parasitic animals and protozoans. Of those, 25 have specimen data available online, with about half of those at least partially georeferenced. We found approximately 3.7 million specimen lots, with the data for about 2.8 million available online through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and institutional websites. Our efforts have revealed flaws with the current state of parasite diversity documentation and accessibility. The first problem is inherent with using a mode of living (parasitism), not a taxonomic designation, to track a group of organisms. There are doubtless many animal parasites held in zoological collections that we did not detect. Secondly, the lack of georeferenced and host data prohibits tracking parasite occurrences across the landscape and inhibits our ability to monitor host-parasite associations, which are expected to shift with changing climate and organismal responses. These problems can be partly remedied by recording locality and host data for parasite specimens, encouraging deposition of parasite specimens with associated data in collections, and increasing efforts to make these data available online. Improving the availability of parasite data will increase the visibility of parasites as important organisms in the biosphere, facilitate assessments of species vulnerability, and inform conservation decisions.