Survey of Orthopteroid Insects of Hispaniola

伊斯帕尼奥拉岛直翅类昆虫调查人口的迅速增长给伊斯帕尼奥拉岛的森林和其他自然区域带来了巨大的压力。许多物种可能已经灭绝了。还有一些濒临灭绝。该项目将通过深入调查直足类昆虫（蟋蟀、蝈蝈、蚱蜢、蟑螂、螳螂和竹节虫）来协助昆虫的生物清查。尽管它们在农业中无处不在，意义重大，但在伊斯帕尼奥拉岛却鲜为人知。该项目的具体目标是采样各种栖息地，特别强调山区保护区，识别已知物种，描述和命名尚未为科学所知的物种，在互联网上提供识别物种的钥匙（以及物种栖息地和分布的信息），并与当地生物学家合作，为未来的伊斯帕尼奥拉昆虫学研究建立基础设施。伊斯帕尼奥拉岛最古老的部分大约有1.05亿年的历史。由于它的年龄和接近丰富的新热带生物群，伊斯帕尼奥拉岛是世界上第三高的海洋岛屿植物多样性。据预计，昆虫的多样性，一旦知道，将是巨大的，也许可以媲美热带大陆。伊斯帕尼奥拉岛有记录的直足类动物总数为238种；然而，实际数字可能是目前已知数字的六倍之多。由于开创性地使用互联网提供分类信息，该项目将几乎立即使伊斯帕尼奥拉岛生物多样性研究的当地基础设施受益，并将有助于促进昆虫学研究。交流结果的主要工具将是现有的直翅目昆虫全球分类数据库（直翅目物种文件在线：http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/orthoptera）。

Survey of Orthopteroid Insects of HispaniolaThe rapidly expanding human population is putting great pressure on the Hispaniolan forests and other natural areas. Many species have probably gone extinct. Others are endangered. This project will assist in the biotic inventory of insects by intensively surveying the orthopteroid insects (crickets, katydids, grasshoppers, cockroaches, mantids, and stick insects). Despite their ubiquitous presence and significance in agriculture, the orthopteroids are poorly known in Hispaniola.The specific goals of the project are to sample a variety of habitats with special emphasis on the mountain reserve areas, identify the known species, describe and name the species not yet known to science, provide keys on the internet to identify the species (and information on the habitats and distributions of species), and collaborate with local biologists in building an infrastructure for future Hispaniolan entomological research. The oldest parts of Hispaniola are about 105 million years old. Because of its age and proximity to the rich Neotropical biota, Hispaniola has the third highest plant diversity of the world's oceanic islands. It is expected that the insect diversity, once known, will be huge, perhaps comparable to that of the continental tropics. The total number of recorded Orthopteroids from Hispaniola is 238; however, the actual number may be as much as six times the number presently known. Because of the pioneering use of the internet to provide taxonomic information, this project will almost immediately benefit the local infrastructure of biodiversity studies in Hispaniola and will help to promote entomological research. The principal vehicle for communicating the results will be an existing global taxonomic database to orthopteroid insects (Orthoptera Species File Online: http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/orthoptera).