Project R-14086

IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Parasite Specialist Group (IUCN SSC PSG) (Research)

The abundance and biodiversity of parasites are much more than meets the eye: parasites account for over 50% of all species on Earth. Despite their often strongly negative connotation, parasites are crucial actors in any healthy ecosystem. They indeed provide many ecosystem services: drivers of species formation and the maintenance of biodiversity, indication of the state of the environment and of host populations, tools for biodiversity conservation and even control of auto-immune diseases of host individuals. So their value in safeguarding biodiversity is multiplied far beyond parasites themselves. Parasites are facing many threats, such as climate change and habitat degradation, both directly and indirectly, through the decline in host populations and host extinctions. There is probably no other group of organisms on Earth that is threatened with extinction to a higher extent than parasites. However, parasites have been mostly overlooked in conservation actions so far. To address this problem, the IUCN SSC Parasite Specialist Group (PSG) was recently established with prof. Maarten Vanhove as a Steering Committee Member for Europe. The main goal of this International Coordination Action is to support the planned activities of IUCN SSC PSG and align them with Flemish/European conservation policy needs. Our group at Hasselt University will coordinate the assessment of conservation status of parasite diversity (Red List of multicellular parasite species of vertebrate animals), a global network of parasite experts, and dissemination of awareness on the importance of parasites and parasite conservation.

01 January 2024 - 31 December 2026