The nature of science: The fundamental role of natural history in ecology, evolution, conservation, and education.

There is a contemporary trend in many major research institutions to de-emphasize the importance of natural history education in favor of theoretical, laboratory, or simulation-based research programs. This may take the form of removing biodiversity and field courses from the curriculum and the sometimes subtle maligning of natural history research as a "lesser" branch of science. Additional threats include massive funding cuts to natural history museums and the maintenance of their collections, the extirpation of taxonomists across disciplines, and a critical under-appreciation of the role that natural history data (and other forms of observational data, including Indigenous knowledge) play in the scientific process.

Placobdella akahkway n. sp. (Clitellata: Hirudinea: Glossiphoniidae), a new leech species from central Canada.

The leech genus Placobdella harbours 24 currently-recognized species, and only a handful of new species has been described in the past decade. Placobdella akahkway n. sp.

Broad geographic sampling and DNA barcoding do not support the presence of Helobdella stagnalis (Linnaeus, 1758) (Clitellata: Glossiphoniidae) in North America.

The description of Helobdella stagnalis (Linnaeus, 1758) has emphasized the presence of a nuchal, chitinous scute located on the dorsal surface in the first third of the body as the diagnostic character for the species. Historically, identifications of species of Helobdella have relied heavily on this character and, as a result, Helobdella stagnalis has been reported from an inordinately broad geographic range, including Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. In addition to a few earlier investigations, a recent analysis showed that great genetic distances (orders of magnitude greater than previous estimations of intraspecific divergence in leeches) are present between scute-bearing specimens identified as H.

Prey, populations, and the pleistocene: evidence for low COI variation in a widespread North American leech.

has long presented challenges to leech biologists. Its extreme morphological variability and similarity to some congeneric species has confounded classification for over a century. Recent molecular analyses revealed a surprising lack of genetic variation among morphologically disparate, geographically widespread specimens of .

Worms that suck: Phylogenetic analysis of Hirudinea solidifies the position of Acanthobdellida and necessitates the dissolution of Rhynchobdellida.

Annelids possessing a posterior sucker and a fixed number of somites - most famously leeches (Hirudinida), but also crayfish worms (Branchiobdellida) and salmonid parasites (Acanthobdellida) - form a clade; however, determining the relationships between these orders has proven challenging. Here, we compile the largest molecular phylogenetic dataset yet analysed for these groups, including new sequences for key taxa. We find robust model-based support for a clade formed by Hirudinida and Acanthobdellida, contrasting the largest prior studies.

Phylogenetic analysis of Placobdella (Hirudinea: Rhynchobdellida: Glossiphoniidae) with consideration of COI variation.

Placobdella is a genus of blood-feeding leeches in the family Glossiphoniidae. Historically, species of Placobdella have posed difficulty for systematists owing to a lack of informative morphological characters and the preponderance of inadequate or incomplete species descriptions. Here, we conduct a phylogenetic analysis of 55 individuals representing 20 of the 24 currently recognized nominal taxa using COI, ND1, 12S rDNA and ITS sequences under parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference.