Search

Study of all flies (Diptera) collected for one year from a four-hectare (150 x 266 meter) patch of cloud forest at 1,600 meters above sea level at Zurquí de Moravia, San José Province, Costa Rica (hereafter referred to as Zurquí), revealed an astounding 4,332 species. This amounts to more than half the number of named species of flies for all of Central America. Specimens were collected with two Malaise traps running continuously and with a wide array of supplementary collecting methods for three days of each month. All morphospecies from all 73 families recorded were fully curated by technicians before submission to an international team of 59 taxonomic experts for identification. Overall, a Malaise trap on the forest edge captured 1,988 species or 51% of all collected dipteran taxa (other than of Phoridae, subsampled only from this and one other Malaise trap). A Malaise trap in the forest sampled 906 species. Of other sampling methods, the combination of four other Malaise traps and an intercept trap, aerial/hand collecting, 10 emergence traps, and four CDC light traps added the greatest number of species to our inventory. This complement of sampling methods was an effective combination for retrieving substantial numbers of species of Diptera. Comparison of select sampling methods (considering 3,487 species of non-phorid Diptera) provided further details regarding how many species were sampled by various methods. Comparison of species numbers from each of two permanent Malaise traps from Zurquí with those of single Malaise traps at each of Tapantí and Las Alturas, 40 and 180 km distant from Zurquí respectively, suggested significant species turnover. Comparison of the greater number of species collected in all traps from Zurquí did not markedly change the degree of similarity between the three sites, although the actual number of species shared did increase. Comparisons of the total number of named and unnamed species of Diptera from four hectares at Zurquí is equivalent to 51% of all flies named from Central America, greater than all the named fly fauna of Colombia, equivalent to 14% of named Neotropical species and equal to about 2.7% of all named Diptera worldwide. Clearly the number of species of Diptera in tropical regions has been severely underestimated and the actual number may surpass the number of species of Coleoptera. Various published extrapolations from limited data to estimate total numbers of species of larger taxonomic categories (e.g., Hexapoda, Arthropoda, Eukaryota, etc.) are highly questionable, and certainly will remain uncertain until we have more exhaustive surveys of all and diverse taxa (like Diptera) from multiple tropical sites. Morphological characterization of species in inventories provides identifications placed in the context of taxonomy, phylogeny, form, and ecology. DNA barcoding species is a valuable tool to estimate species numbers but used alone fails to provide a broader context for the species identified.

Made available in DSpace on 2019-10-06T15:56:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2018-12-01 Estimations of tropical insect diversity generally suffer from lack of known groups or faunas against which extrapolations can be made, and have seriously underestimated the diversity of some taxa. Here we report the intensive inventory of a four-hectare tropical cloud forest in Costa Rica for one year, which yielded 4332 species of Diptera, providing the first verifiable basis for diversity of a major group of insects at a single site in the tropics. In total 73 families were present, all of which were studied to the species level, providing potentially complete coverage of all families of the order likely to be present at the site. Even so, extrapolations based on our data indicate that with further sampling, the actual total for the site could be closer to 8000 species. Efforts to completely sample a site, although resource-intensive and time-consuming, are needed to better ground estimations of world biodiversity based on limited sampling. Entomology Section Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard Royal British Columbia Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, 691-8th Ave. SE Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences Poole Agricultural Center Clemson University, 130 McGinty Court, E-143 Depto. de Biologia FFCLRP Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Bandeirantes 3900 Great Lakes Forestry Centre Canadian Forest Service Natural Resources Canada, 1219 Queen St. E. Australian Museum, 1 William Street Department of Natural Resource Sciences McGill University Macdonald Campus Canadian National Collection of Insects Invertebrate Biodiversity Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, K.W. Neatby Building, 960 Carling Avenue Department of Biological Sciences Spaulding Hall University of New Hampshire Department of Biological Sciences Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy Instituto Federal do Triângulo Mineiro – Campus Uberaba. Rua João Batista Ribeiro 4000 Distrito Industrial II Departamento de Zoologia Universidade Federal do Paraná Jardim das Américas Mississippi Entomological Museum Mississippi State University, 100 Old Highway 12, P.O. Drawer 9775 Department of Biology Western Kentucky University Integrative Research Center Field Museum of Natural History Independent Investigator California State Collection of Arthropods, 2683 Tam O’ Shanter Dr., El Dorado Hills California Department of Food and Agriculture California State Collection of Arthropods, 3294 Meadowview Rd. The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, 1900 Ben Franklin Parkway American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th St. Department of Entomology University of California Riverside, 900 University Ave. Zoological Museum Biodiversity Unit FI-20014 University of Turku Instituto de Ecología A.C. (INECOL) Red Ambiente y Sustentabilidad, Carretera Antigua a Coatepec 351, Col El Haya, Xalapa Station Linné, Ölands Skogsby 161 I. I. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Bogdan Chmielnicki St. 15 Universidad de Panama Department of Natural History University Museum of Bergen University of Bergen, P.O. Box 7800 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 960 Carling Avenue School of Environmental Sciences University of Guelph Department of Entomology Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, MRC 169 Natural History Museum of Denmark, Universitetsparken 15 Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190 Systematic Entomology Laboratory USDA ARS c/o National Museum of Natural History, MRC-168, P.O. Box 37012 Departamento de Sistemática e Ecologia CCEN Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Castelo Branco, s/n Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Kliniekstraat 25 Research Group Terrestrial Ecology (TEREC) Ghent University, K.L.Ledeganckstraat 35 Entomology Unit Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences (RBINS), Vautierstraat 29 USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station Forestry Sciences Laboratory, 1648 S. 7th Avenue Department of Biological Sciences Bishop’s University, 2600 College Street UNESP - Univ Estadual Paulista Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias Departamento de Morfologia e Fisiologia Animal; Via de Acesso Prof. Paulo Donato Castellane s/n Canadian National Collection of Insects & Canadian Food Inspection Agency OPL-Entomology, K.W. Neatby Bldg., C.E.F., 960 Carling Ave. Department of Biological Sciences University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW Finnish Museum of Natural History Zoology Unit University of Helsinki Washington State University, 2533 Inter Avenue Bohart Museum of Entomology University of California, One Shields Avenue Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) UNESP - Univ Estadual Paulista Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias Departamento de Morfologia e Fisiologia Animal; Via de Acesso Prof. Paulo Donato Castellane s/n

The larva and/or puparium of the Neotropical syrphids Habromyia coeruleithorax Williston, 1888, Palpada furcata (Wiedemann, 1819), and six species of Meromacrus Rondani, 1848, are figured, described, and compared with other similar larvae. All of these larvae are similar in external form, having mouthparts adapted for filtering suspended items of food, retractile anterior spiracles, prolegs with crochets, and extended anal segments (=long-tailed larvae). Each species varied in the size and distribution of integumental setae and spicules and in the size and form of the pupal spiracles. Keys are provided to identify genera of Neotropical long-tailed syrphid larvae and to separate the six species of Meromacrus: M. acutus (Fabricius, 1805), M. currani Hull, 1942, M. draco Hull, 1942, M. laconicus (Walker, 1852), M. loewii (Williston, 1892), and M. obscurus Hine, 1924. Larvae of all these species were found in tree holes, except for M. draco, which was associated with decaying bananas, and P. furcata,...

When assessing the species richness of a taxonomic group in a specific area, the choice of sampling method is critical. In this study, the effectiveness of three methods for sampling syrphids (Diptera: Syrphidae) in tropical forests is compared: Malaise trapping, collecting adults with an entomological net, and collecting and rearing immatures. Surveys were made from 2008 to 2011 in six tropical forest sites in Costa Rica. The results revealed significant differences in the composition and richness of syrphid faunas obtained by each method. Collecting immatures was the most successful method based on numbers of species and individuals, whereas Malaise trapping was the least effective. This pattern of sampling effectiveness was independent of syrphid trophic or functional group and annual season. An advantage of collecting immatures over collecting adults is the quality and quantity of associated biological data obtained by the former method. However, complementarity between results of collecting adults and collecting immatures, showed that a combined sampling regime obtained the most complete inventory. Differences between these results and similar studies in more open Mediterranean habitats, suggest that for effective inventory, it is important to consider the effects of environmental characteristics on the catchability of syrphids as much as the costs and benefits of different sampling techniques.

A new genus, Neuzina, is described from specimens collected in Brazil (Par ), Venezuela (Guarico) and Costa Rica (Guanacaste). The species Neuzina diminuta is described as the type species of the genus and based on the presence of the proepisternal seta and characters of male and female genitalia the genus is placed in the subfamily Sciomyzinae, tribe Sciomyzini.

Nutritive assessment of pejibaye (Bactris gasipaes) meals included proximal composition of the lipid and nitrogenous fractions. Caloric values obtained as true metabolizable energy (TME) indicate that the pejibaye has a higher content of energy than corn and that it is not necessary to separate the seeds from the fruits in animal feeds; the level of indispensable aminoacids is considerably low, especially methionine, which is lower than in corn; thin layer chromatography shows that most of the free fatty acids are present in a ratio of 2:1 in unsaturated to saturated acids. The predominant fatty acids in whole pejibaye meal are oleic and palmitic acids with adequate levels of linoleic acid. Saturated fatty acids are predominant in the seed, with a very high content of lauric and myristic acids.

Light traps have been used widely to sample insect abundance and diversity, but their performance for sampling scarab beetles in tropical forests based on light source type and sampling hours throughout the night has not been evaluated. The efficiency of mercury-vapour lamps, cool white light and ultraviolet light sources in attracting Dynastinae, Melolonthinae and Rutelinae scarab beetles, and the most adequate period of the night to carry out the sampling was tested in different forest areas of Costa Rica. Our results showed that light source wavelengths and hours of sampling influenced scarab beetle catches. No significant differences were observed in trap performance between the ultraviolet light and mercury-vapour traps, whereas these two methods caught significantly more species richness and abundance than cool white light traps. Species composition also varied between methods. Large differences appear between catches in the sampling period, with the first five hours of the night being more effective than the last five hours. Because of their high efficiency and logistic advantages, we recommend ultraviolet light traps deployed during the first hours of the night as the best sampling method for biodiversity studies of those scarab beetles in tropical forests. Las trampas de luz han sido ampliamente utilizadas en el muestreo de la diversidad y abundancia de insectos, pero su eficacia en el muestreo de escarabeidos en bosques tropicales en función de la fuente de luz y del periodo de muestreo durante la noche no ha sido investigada. Se evaluó la eficacia de trampas con luz de vapor de mercurio, ultravioleta y blanca fría en la atracción de escarabeidos pertenecientes a las subfamilias Dynastinae, Melolonthinae y Rutelinae y el periodo de la noche más adecuado para llevar a cabo los muestreos en diferentes bosques de Costa Rica. Los resultados mostraron que las longitudes de onda de las luces utilizadas y el periodo de muestreo influyen en las capturas de estos escarabeidos. No se observaron diferencias significativas entre la eficacia de la luz ultravioleta y la de vapor de mercurio, mientras que ambos métodos capturaron significativamente más riqueza de especies y abundancia que la luz blanca fría. La composición de especies también varió entre métodos. Se encontraron diferencias entre los dos periodos de muestreo, siendo las cinco primeras horas de la noche más efectivas que las cinco últimas. Dada su elevada eficacia y ventajas logísticas, recomendamos el uso de trampas de luz ultravioleta durante las primeras horas de la noche como el mejor método de muestreo en estudios de biodiversidad de estos escarabeidos en bosques tropicales. This project was supported by AECI projects A/4426/05, A/6788/06 and A/019887/08 and a University of Alicante grant to A. García-López.