Survey of the Aquatic Insects of Northern Venezuela with an emphasis on Coleoptera

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Freshwater resources are critical to ecosystem and human health. Aquatic insects are effective indicators of these resources but are not widely used in northern South America because many species remain undescribed and their disturbance tolerances are unknown. This project will address this problem by extensively surveying aquatic insects, particularly beetles, in northern Venezuela in tandem with water chemistry and human disturbance data. Subsequent laboratory work will focus on describing newly discovered species as well as examining patterns of species richness, seasonality, and distribution.This 4-year project will (1) discover an estimated 400 undescribed species of aquatic insects and result in the description of ca. 200 new beetle species, (2) Add more than 150,000 specimens to US and Venezuelan museum collections, (3) provide quantitative, baseline water quality data to detect and examine the impact of and differentiate between environmental change and human development, and (4) train US and Latin American graduate students and provide research experiences for undergraduates students at the University of Kansas and the University of New Mexico. Collaborations with several Venezuelan universities and development of extensive cyberinfrastructure, including online-accessible specimen databases, historical literature, and identification resources, will provide a foundation for future work on aquatic insects throughout tropical South America.