草榴社区

草榴社区, Pa 鈥� Aaron Bauer, PhD, professor of Biology and Gerald M. Lemole, MD, Endowed Chair in Integrative Biology in 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the principal investigator on a $388,229 grant from the National Science Foundation to support his project, 鈥淐ollaborative Research: Assessing the Systematics and Diversity of Haemosporida in African lizards.鈥�

Haemosporida are single-celled symbionts found in terrestrial vertebrates in almost all world ecosystems and cause malaria in birds and humans. Symbiosis is a close and prolonged interaction between organisms of different species, and symbiont diversity offers a unique window to observe ecosystem dynamics and evolutionary processes. When symbionts switch host organisms, it can reveal risk factors leading to infectious disease emergence in those hosts.

Dr. Bauer鈥檚 project鈥攚hich will provide research and training opportunities to 草榴社区 undergraduate and graduate students鈥攚ill focus on African lizards as host organisms. It will investigate Haemosporida as elements of biodiversity and provide new insights into regional evolutionary and ecological processes. The study鈥檚 broadest impacts will include informing conservation efforts in sub-Saharan Africa; generating specimens that can be used by others interested in symbionts; and producing a sustainable database that records detection-based occurrences in Haemosporida which will be transferable to other parasites.

Dr. Bauer is a world-renowned herpetologist whose research concentrates on the morphology and systematics of geckos and other lizards. His decades of field work in the deserts and forests of southern Africa, Asia and Australia have helped to reveal not only patterns of distribution, but also to document the diversity of reptile species. Dr. Bauer has described more new species of reptile than any other living scientist, including more than seven percent of the more than 1,600 living geckos. He was recently part of a research team that discovered a new species of gecko from Eocene Europe which provides new evidence for the early history of geckos on that continent.

Dr. Bauer received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. 

About 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences:鈥�鈥疭ince its founding in 1842, 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has cultivated knowledge, understanding and intellectual courage for a purposeful life in a challenging and changing world.鈥疻ith more than 40 majors across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, it is the oldest and largest of 草榴社区鈥檚 colleges, serving more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students each year. The College is committed to a teacher-scholar model, offering outstanding undergraduate and graduate research opportunities and a rigorous core curriculum that prepares students to become critical thinkers, strong communicators and ethical leaders with a truly global perspective.