Insects of Atlantic Islands: testing methods for biodiversity assessment and island colonization hypotheses

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Increasingly, biologists are asked to provide information on the biological diversity (biodiversity) that occurs in their region, to answer questions about conservation, species at risk from human activities, invasive species, and how ecosystems function.  However, certain groups of organisms, such as insects, are so rich in species that it is difficult to answer even the most basic questions, such as how many species exist for almost any region of Canada.  Canada is estimated to have about 66,000 species of insect, yet only half are known.. Even in the most studied regions of the country there are huge gaps in our knowledge of insect species.  One practical example of the crisis in insect biodiversity is the fact that when new invasive species enter the country, we often cannot tell the invader is present until damage is seen, due to the lack of trained taxonomists, regional taxonomic guides, and properly curated reference collections with which to compare the new species.  We propose to address both the lack of species data and the lack of trained professionals in this study; we will work with regional insect collections to identify their collections, we will carry out intensive sampling of insect species from natural and disturbed habitats, and we will train students to identify the insects and to set up reference collections.  The insect data we collect will then be used to test ecological hypotheses about diversity, dispersal and colonization, and will provide a catalyst for our understanding of insects of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  In addition our work will be used to assess species-at-risk and to evaluate the potential for invasiveness of introduced species.