Arthropod Diversity in a Lowland Tropical Rainforest

作为热带研究组织(由45所美国哥斯达黎加大学和博物馆组成的联盟)和国家生物多样性研究所(哥斯达黎加非政府组织INBO)之间的合作项目，位于哥斯达黎加大西洋低地的生物多样性站La Selva将启动一项关于热带雨林昆虫、蜘蛛和螨类的生物多样性清单。该项目的这一阶段旨在为几个重点昆虫、蜘蛛和螨类编制完整的物种一级清单，包括雨林栖息地中一些最重要的类群。这些清单将基于生态结构的、可重复的抽样方法，以及结构较少的补充收集。将仅使用结构化抽样技术对必须更广泛的调查小组进行清点，每个调查小组都包括一个重点小组。将探索统计方法，以估计研究区域内昆虫、蜘蛛和螨类物种的总数，使用各群体的完整清单数据来评估这些方法，并为更广泛的调查群体校准物种数量估计。抽样设计将允许评估生境类型、植被结构、物种和季节对整体物种丰富度的贡献。这些估计有望提供迄今为止关于热带雨林昆虫和蜘蛛物种多样性的最现实和最全面的数据，以及对任何热带雨林蠕虫动物群的多样性估计。这些群体或有机体，虽然很好地代表了地球上的整个物种，但仍然是最鲜为人知的物种之一。标本将被纳入已经在INBIO进行的国家生物多样性清单，从而将La Selva调查材料置于更大的地理和生物背景下，促进INBIO不断扩大的国际专家网络对这一材料的进一步研究，并确保标本的永久可获取性。该项目旨在促进北美和哥斯达黎加科学家之间广泛的新合作途径。

As a collaborative project between the Organization for Tropical Studies (a consortium of 45 U.S. Costa Rican universities and museums) and the National Biodiversity Institute (INBio, a Costa Rican nongovernmental organization), a biodiversity inventory of tropical rainforest insects, spiders, and mites will initiated for La Selva, a biotically rich and scientifically active biological station situated in the Atlantic lowlands of Costa Rica. This stage of the project aims to produce full, species-level inventories for several focal groups of insects, spiders, and mites, including some of the most important groups in rainforest habitats. These inventories will be based on ecologically structured, repeatable sampling methods, as well as on less- structure supplemental collecting. A must broader range of survey groups, each including a focal group, will be inventoried using the structured sampling techniques alone. Statistical methods will be explored for estimating the total number of insect, spider, and mite species in the study areas, using the full inventory data for the groups to evaluate these methods and to calibrate estimates of species number for the broader survey groups. The sampling design will permit evaluation of the contributions of habitat would type vegetation structure species, and season to overall species richness. These estimated promise to provide the most realistic and comprehensive data yet available on the diversity of insect and spider species of tropical rainforests, and diversity estimates for any rainforest mite fauna. These groups or organisms, while representing well overall the species on earth, are still among the most poorly known. Specimens will be integrated into the national biodiversity inventory already underway at INBio, thus placing the La Selva survey material in a larger geographical and biological context, promoting further study of this material by INBio's growing international network of specialists, and ensuring permanent accessibility of the specimens. The project is structured to promote extensive new avenues of collaboration between North American and Costa Rican scientists.