Insect Survey of a Megadiverse Country: Colombia - click

Background

The Colombia Arthropod Project is a collaborative effort between the Humboldt Institute in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, the University of Kentucky and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. It is funded by a grant from the US National Science Foundation to Mike Sharkey (Kentucky) and Brian Brown (Los Angeles) and by the Humboldt Institute's support of the laboratory of Fernando Fernandez.

The project is an attempt to make the first large-scale survey of focal groups of Hymenoptera and Diptera in Colombia, one of the world's megadiversity countries. We are using Malaise traps, operated by local staff, in 10 parks and protected areas in a variety of habitats. The material is sorted by technicians at the Humboldt Institute and then sent taxonomic experts both within Colombia and internationally.

Products of the project include large new collections, species lists, material for revisionary studies and species accumulation curves to compare the faunas with other, better known sites.

A full list of the sites we are surveying is pending, but includes at least the following (listing has state, locality, approximate coordinates, elevations and habitat description):

1) Amazonas: Parque Nacional Natural (PNN) Amacayacu, 3.82 deg. S, 70.26 deg. W, 200 m. Lowland rain forest
2) Boyacá: Santuario de Fauna y Flora Iguaque, 5.69 deg. N, 73.45 deg. W, 2800-3400 m. Montane forest to paramo.
3) Cauca: PNN Gorgona, 2.97 deg. N, 78.18 deg. W, sea level-100 m. Lowland rain forest on an island in the Pacific Ocean.
4) Vichada: PNN El Tuparro, 5.35 deg. N, 67.86 deg. W,  . Savanna, gallery forest.
5) Chocó: PNN Utria, 6.02 deg. N, 77.35 deg. W, sea level-100 m. Lowland rain forest.