Inventory of the Lepidoptera Larvae, their Parasitoids, and their Gut Microbes of a Costa Rican Tropical Dry Forest, Cloud Forest, and Rainforest

该项目将对哥斯达黎加西北部瓜纳卡斯特保护区11万公顷热带干林及其毗邻雨林和云雾林中生活的所有大毛虫物种进行调查。研究将集中在鉴定和分类毛虫物种及其相关的成年生命形式，它们的食物植物关系，它们的拟寄生物物种（速虫蝇，寄生蜂，线虫，昆虫病原真菌），它们的肠道微生物群，以及创建与物种和收集地点相关的图像和数据的在线数据库。该项目旨在发现、追踪、拍摄和描述至少另外1000种目前未知的大毛虫（鳞翅目不包括采叶虫），从而为该地区提供大约3000种已知但尚未发现的物种。此外，该项目将维持和扩大毛虫和寄生蜂凭证材料的收集，通过网络和传统方法出版鉴定密钥、物种描述和自然历史信息。本项目设计为长期大规模库存，由环境生物学部和国际项目学部联合主办。

This project will inventory all species of macrocaterpillars living in the 110,000 ha of tropical dry forest and its contiguous rain forest and cloud forest in the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste in northwestern Costa Rica. Research will be focused on identification and classification of caterpillar speciesand their associated adult life forms, their food plant relationships, their species of parasitoids (tachinid flies, parasitic wasps, nematodes, entomopathogenic fungi), their gut microbiota, and the creation of on-line databanks of images and data associated with species and collecting localities. The project is designed to discover, rear, photograph, and characterize caterpillars of at least another 1000 species of currently unknown macrocaterpillars (Lepidoptera exclusive of leaf miners) to yield approximately 3,000 species known and yet undiscovered for the region. In addition, the project will maintain and enlarge the collection of caterpillar and parasitoid voucher material, publish by web-based and traditional methods identification keys, species descriptions, and natural history information. This project is designed as a Long-term Large-scale Inventory and is jointly sponsored by the Division of Environmental Biology and the Division of International Programs.