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For a first-year undergraduate, the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department presented seemingly endless research opportunities and focuses for a student, regardless of their interests. I can’t say that parasitology has been my childhood obsession or academic passion, but the photos of frogs with extra limbs sure caught my attention when I was combing through research done in the EBIO department at the University of Colorado Boulder. When I had the opportunity to be a part of the necropsy team in the Johnson lab during the summer of 2022, I learned more about the parasites that caused these malformations. Recently fascinated by parasitology and the extensive opportunity in such an important but underrecognized branch of ecology, I decided to pursue an honors thesis using my new knowledge and skills.

Many parasites require multiple hosts to complete their life cycles, Haematoloechus spp are an example of such organisms. Specifically, I am studying these parasites in the American bullfrog, placing my research at the intersection of invasive species and disease ecology. Infection can have implications for chronic impacts on the hosts’ fitness but may also indicate patterns for the health of the ecosystem. These effects are especially important given the increasing urgency of the impacts of climate change. As such, I hope to learn more about species within the Haematoloechus genus and their patterns of infection in order to enable the prediction of events and planning for conservation of our world’s wetland ecosystems.