New insights from old bugs: assessing hidden biodiversity in insect collections

来自老昆虫的新见解：评估昆虫收藏中隐藏的生物多样性

• 批准号: 312592-2007
• 负责人: Giberson, Donna
• 金额: $ 1.4万
• 依托单位: University of Prince Edward Island
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Group
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2007-01-01 至 2008-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=361868
• 关键词: New; insights; old; bugs; assessing

Despite their ecological importance, we know little about global or regional species patterns for most insect groups, particularly over time scales of a few decades. This "biodiversity crisis" limits us fromaddressing questions (for insects) about presence of introduced or invasive species, vulnerability of species to human activities, and conservation of species and habitats. Data from large scale inventories are needed, but are difficult to obtain, due to high costs of inventories, lack of trained taxonomists, and high diversity (>66000 insect species in Canada compared to only a few hundred birds). We argue that the results from large-scale inventories already exist, but are hidden, due to a lack of co-ordination and sample processing in small museums scattered throughout the regions. Many insect collections in universities, government labs, and provincial natural history museums in the Maritimes extend over periods of >100 yrs, but most are dominated by specimens that have either not been identified or not been organized into accessible formats (i.e. a standard database). Tens of thousands of insect specimens fall into this category; if these can be processed and results made accessible, the data will become available to answer questions relating to human-based activities and ecological theory, and allow researchers to focus future collecting rather than duplicate past, but hidden, work.  We will tackle 5 major insect groups for which we have expertise in identification and training, and for which ecological and habitat requirements are known.  We will identify and database previously collected specimens from regional and national museum collections in our target groups, to begin the process of mining the "hidden biodiversity" information that already exists.  We will then use these data to identify faunal changes and their mechanisms that can be tested with other groups.  The main benefits from this study will be the curation of insect collections in regional museums (for reliable reference material), an accessible database for several large groups of insects (for ecological studies), and a group of trained taxonomists that can recognize new invasions and extend biodiversity work to other groups.

尽管它们具有重要的生态意义，但我们对大多数昆虫群体的全球或区域物种模式知之甚少，特别是在几十年的时间尺度上。这种“生物多样性危机”限制了我们（为昆虫）解决有关引进或入侵物种的存在、物种对人类活动的脆弱性以及物种和栖息地的保护等问题。由于调查成本高、缺乏训练有素的分类学家和高度的多样性（加拿大有大约66000种昆虫，而鸟类只有几百种），需要大规模调查的数据，但很难获得。我们认为，大规模库存的结果已经存在，但由于分散在各个地区的小型博物馆缺乏协调和样品处理，因此被隐藏起来。海洋地区的大学、政府实验室和省级自然历史博物馆中收集的许多昆虫标本都有100年的历史，但大多数标本要么没有被鉴定出来，要么没有被组织成可访问的格式（即标准数据库）。成千上万的昆虫标本属于这一类；如果这些数据可以被处理，并且结果可以被访问，那么这些数据将可以用来回答与人类活动和生态理论有关的问题，并允许研究人员将重点放在未来的收集上，而不是重复过去但隐藏的工作。我们将处理5个主要的昆虫类群，我们在鉴定和训练方面有专门知识，并且它们的生态和栖息地要求是已知的。我们将在我们的目标群体中识别和数据库以前从地区和国家博物馆收藏的标本，开始挖掘已经存在的“隐藏的生物多样性”信息的过程。然后，我们将使用这些数据来确定动物群的变化及其机制，这些变化可以通过其他小组进行测试。这项研究的主要好处将是在地区博物馆中管理昆虫收藏（作为可靠的参考材料），为几个大型昆虫类群提供一个可访问的数据库（用于生态学研究），以及一批训练有素的分类学家，他们可以识别新的入侵并将生物多样性工作扩展到其他类群。