SGER: Urgent Biodiversity Survey of two threatened cave systems in Mexico

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A SGER award is made to the University of Maryland to conduct an urgent biodiversity survey of two cave systems in the El Abra Formation in Mexico. Due to direct mining and collateral impact by sinking water tables, these caves are predicted to be destroyed or uninhabitable for cave fauna in the near future. This study will document the endangered cave invertebrate fauna and preserve and disseminate specimens for biological research. The survey will cover aquatic and terrestrial cave habitats in pristine and impacted areas of both caves. From a scientific perspective, caves offer a fertile study ground for a diversity of fields, including phylogenetics, taxonomy, biogeography, behavioral ecology, and developmental biology. Combined with the advances in molecular and genomics techniques, they are emerging as a promising model system for understanding the tempo and mode of evolution, and the convergence of structural, functional and behavioral changes across diverse taxonomic groups. Additionally, caves provide a multitude of ecological niches, whose relative stability and antiquity enable relict faunas to persist. Their presence often point to larger hydrological and geological events, and thus cave fauna can usefully inform disciplines other than biology.