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

SGER奖授予马里兰大学，对墨西哥El Abra组的两个洞穴系统进行紧急生物多样性调查。由于直接开采和地下水位下沉的间接影响，这些洞穴预计在不久的将来将被摧毁或不适合洞穴动物居住。这项研究将记录濒危的洞穴无脊椎动物动物群，并保存和传播用于生物学研究的标本。这项调查将涵盖两个洞穴原始和受影响地区的水生和陆地洞穴栖息地。从科学的角度来看，洞穴为各种领域提供了肥沃的研究土壤，包括系统发育学、分类学、生物地理学、行为生态学和发育生物学。结合分子和基因组学技术的进步，它们正在成为一个很有希望的模式系统，用于理解进化的节奏和模式，以及跨不同分类类群的结构、功能和行为变化的趋同。此外，洞穴提供了大量的生态位，其相对稳定性和古代性使残留的动物群得以持续存在。它们的存在往往指向更大的水文和地质事件，因此洞穴动物可以有益地为生物学以外的学科提供信息。

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.