CAREER: A Faunistic and Phylogeographic Survey of Beetle Diversity in the California Floristic Province Hotspot

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ABSTRACTMichael CaterinoDEB 0447694This CAREERS project, based at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History,will build a foundation for synthetic study of the rich beetle fauna of theCalifornia Floristic Province. It will establish the PI as one of a verysmall number of arthropod biodiversity specialists of this increasinglyimperiled region. Focusing on the southern Californian Transverse Ranges,this project integrates field-based inventory work, DNA-based studies ofgeographic variation, and a cutting edge bioinformatics platform to developa uniquely deep understanding of the area's biodiversity. The CaliforniaFloristic Province is an internationally recognized biodiversity hotspot,yet its most diverse inhabitants, beetles and other arthropods, remain verypoorly known. This project will discover hundreds of undescribed beetlespecies, will reveal the extent of genetic diversity across the region, andwill document the distributions of thousands of species in unprecedenteddetail. The data developed through this study will have far-reachingapplication. The region has long been recognized as an important naturallaboratory for studying evolution, providing important insights into theprocess of speciation. But these studies have been taxonomically limited.Expanding on this body of work through studies of regional beetles willallow real generalizations to be made about these processes. Additionally,despite their ecological significance, invertebrates have received littleconsideration in land use management in the region, due principally to alack of applicable and accessible data. This project will produce this dataand an online system for accessing it. Promoting knowledge and appreciation of insect biodiversity in the region isone of the project's primary goals. Students at high school, undergraduate,and postdoctoral levels will be directly involved in the research. They willgain experience in field biology, modern molecular systematics techniques,and bioinformatics methodology. All project personnel will share findingsthrough public presentations at the Museum, through professionalpresentations at international conferences, and through an attractive,user-friendly project web site. The web site will provide the primary portalfor direct access to project data. The underlying database will housethousands of georeferenced specimen records, enabling GIS-based mapping anddistributional analyses. These data will also be accessible to automatedqueries from remote servers assembling a global biodiversity dataarchitecture. For general users the web site will provide access to naturalhistory information and photographs of many species they may find in thearea. Special effort will be also made to make this information readilyuseful by primary school students and educators.