Bigger Fleas Have Little Fleas?

Colin Carlson has written a paper advocating the setting up of a Global Parasite Project (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/29/overlooked-and-unloved-how-a-global-project-could-unlock-the-world-of-parasites-aoe). He points out that parasitism (where one organism 'free-loads' on another) is a life-style and that parasites, because of the 'yuk' factor, rarely attract (unlike Pandas?) much attention from conservation bodies and charities. In fact, the Medicinal leech, that was over-collected almost to extinction, when blood-letting was medically in vogue, is one of the very few parasites to receive any formal protection. Carlson suggests that there may be as many as 80 million parasitic organisms but that only 10% of these have been identified thus far. He feels they may have analogies with dark matter. Carlson also presents evidence, suggesting that parasites are much more important in food chains than was formerly assumed. I also think that the roles of parasites in ecology, should not be routinuely dismissed as being only negative (some may be important for the balance of populations). Many parasites also have really intriguing life-cycles, where they alter the behaviour of their host. Parasite-host relations consequently involve subleties that can be one of the joys of studying Biology. Bite on!