Arthropod Biodiversity from Rainforest to Cloud Forest, Project ALAS Phase IV

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

This project will continue inventory of selected arthropod (insects and arachnid) taxa along an elecational transect at the La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. This work builds on the achievements of Project ALAS, an ongoing inventory of tropical rainforest arthropods at La Selva, a biotically rich and scientifically active research station situated in the Atlantic lowlands of Costa Rica. ALAS is a collaborative project of the Organization for Tropical Studies and the Insituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio, Costa Rica). In this work, the biogeographic scope of ALAS is expanded to include the adjacent forested slopes of Volcan Barva, which extend from 30 m elevation rainforest at La Selva to 2900m montane forest at the summit (the Barva Transect). Because species turnover is dramatic along trpical elevational gradients, this project promises to yield specimens of many new taxa, while increasing scientific understanding of earlier inventory results from La Selva and revealing much about the bioclimatic distribution of tropical arthropod biodiversity. The proposal calls for intensive sampling at three sites and less intensive sampling at an additional seven sites. The ten sites will be distributed at 250 m elevation intervals from La Selva to the summit of the Barva Transect. At all ten sites, a Malaise trap will be maintained for the full three years of the proejct, and a pair of Winkler samplers will be taken. Intensive sampling will take place at 500m, 1000m, and 2000m elevations, with a pulse sample representing all taxons at the 1000m site. The primary goals of Project ALAS are arthropod inventory, species discovery, and scientific support of the advancement of systematics.