Inventory of the Lepidoptera Larvae and their Parasitoids ina Tropical Dry Forest

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This is a 3-year major portion of the inventory of all caterpillars, their host plant relationships, and their parasitoids in the tropical dry forest of the Guanacaste Conservation Area in northwestern Costa Rica. The inventory results are designed to make caterpillars and their trophic relationships with food plants and parasitoids available to basic studies in ecology, systematics, behavior, physiology and evolution, and to applied users in natural products chemistry, education, and pest management. The overall goal is to establish this biological system as an integral part of the non-destructive sustainable use of a complex tropical wildland by science and by Costa Rican society. Specifically, this project will accomplish the following. Locate, rear and characterize the caterpillars of a minimum of another 500 species of macromoths (and some butterflies), and a minimum of another 335 species of microlepidoptera, so as to yield a total of approximately 1450 species characterized for this forest. This is approximately half of its caterpillar fauna. All information will be stored in computerized data bases; Maintain and enlarge the current collecting of voucher material for all rearings, and increase the number of duplicates so as to be able to easily donate specimens to studies of taxonomy and morphology of caterpillars and pupae; Publish field guides in Spanish and English to the caterpillars of this forest, family by family, as the rearing for each family is complete or nearly so; Publish survey papers listing the host plant records for all of the species reared, papers listing the parasitoids reared from the caterpillars collected in the field and papers on caterpillars and parasitoid natural history.