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

淡水资源对生态系统和人类健康至关重要。水生昆虫是这些资源的有效指标，但在南美洲北部没有广泛使用，因为许多物种仍未被描述，它们对干扰的耐受性尚不清楚。该项目将结合水化学和人为干扰数据，在委内瑞拉北部广泛调查水生昆虫，特别是甲虫，以解决这一问题。随后的实验室工作将集中于描述新发现的物种，以及检查物种丰富度、季节性和分布的模式。这个为期四年的项目将(1)发现大约400种未被描述的水生昆虫，并导致大约200种新的甲虫物种的描述，(2)为美国和委内瑞拉的博物馆收藏增加超过150,000个标本，(3)提供定量的基线水质数据，以检测和检查环境变化和人类发展的影响并区分它们。(4)培养美国和拉丁美洲的研究生，并为堪萨斯大学和新墨西哥大学的本科生提供研究经验。与委内瑞拉几所大学的合作以及广泛的网络基础设施的发展，包括可在线访问的标本数据库、历史文献和鉴定资源，将为今后在整个南美洲热带地区开展水生昆虫研究奠定基础。

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.