Aquatic Faunal Survey of the Lower Amazon

一个由生物多样性专家组成的小组将对巴西亚马逊河下游淡水栖息地的自由生活的水生海绵、扁形虫、环节动物蠕虫、软体动物、甲壳类动物和鱼类进行调查。与盆地的其他地区相比，该地区的样本明显不足，仍然是热带地区科学发现的最后前沿之一。来自美国、巴西和其他国家机构的调查人员将进行多栖息地、多季节的一系列考察，以收集、拍摄、鉴定、编目和分析水生动物。该项目将产生大量地理参考标本，制作在线和印刷的动物指南，生成物种描述，分类修订，以及亚马逊水生动物生态和进化的综合研究，并将为学生培训提供独特的机会。该项目收集的资料、数据和产品将成为了解亚马逊非凡的多样性是如何产生和维持的持久资源，这种多样性对人类压力的适应能力如何，以及如何保护它。因此，项目成果对渔业和自然资源管理、生态学、生物地理学、古生物学、地质学、进化生物学、考古学和人类学等领域的专业人士都很有价值。这个项目也将使亚马逊河流域以水生资源为生的人们受益，也将使全世界希望更多地了解亚马逊河流域的公众受益。迷人但受到威胁的水生生物。

A team of biodiversity specialists will inventory the free-living aquatic sponges, flatworms, annelid worms, mollusks, crustaceans, and fishes of the freshwater habitats of the lower Amazon basin of Brazil. This region is remarkably poorly sampled in comparison to other parts of the basin, and remains one of the last frontiers for scientific discovery in the tropics. Investigators from institutions in the U.S., Brazil and other countries will undertake a multi-habitat, multi-season series of expeditions to collect, photograph, identify, catalog, and analyze the aquatic fauna. The project will yield large geo-referenced collections of specimens, produce on-line and printed faunal guides, generate species descriptions, taxonomic revisions, and synthetic studies of the ecology and evolution of Amazonian aquatic animals, and will provide unique opportunities for student training.The collections, data, and products generated by this project will serve as a lasting resource for understanding how the extraordinary diversity of the Amazon is generated and maintained, how resilient this diversity is to human pressure, and how it can be protected. Project results will therefore be valuable to professionals in fisheries and natural resource management, ecology, biogeography, paleontology, geology, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and anthropology. This project will also benefit people of the Amazon whose livelihoods are dependent upon aquatic resources, and members of the public worldwide who wish to learn more about the Amazon?s fascinating yet threatened aquatic life.