The Upper West African Guinean forests are considered one of 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world and are a vital refuge and region of high species endemicity. Knowledge of insect diversity in this habitat is poor relative to that found in other threatened areas in the tropics. There is extreme urgency for an insect survey in the Upper Guinean forests because this ecosystem is more threatened and is disappearing more quickly than most other global hotspots. Severe pressure on these forests results from some of the highest human population growth rates, most intensive logging, and rampant bushmeat hunting found anywhere in the world. The main goals of this project are: 1) to conduct an intensive survey of insects in the Guinean forests of Ghana and two additional areas in savannah and sub-sahalian regions, using a wide variety of collecting techniques, resulting in the collection of a large diversity of invertebrate groups previously unavailable to systematists; 2) to develop and rehabilitate a host country authoritative reference collection thereby creating a national insect collection and integrating it into the global systematics community; 3) to educate and train students and collaborate with scientists from Ghana (University of Ghana (Legon), Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research, and The Ghana Wildlife Society) and students from Western Kentucky University on insect sampling techniques, biodiversity studies, and insect curation providing much needed scientific systematic expertise in Ghana; 4) to partner with The Ghana Wildlife Society and other organizations and individuals by providing web accessible databases with identification keys and images of spider beetles and dung beetles and all available biological information on the group.
The intellectual merit of this proposal is to ultimately better understand the biodiversity of these poorly studied and highly threatened forests by providing large numbers insect samples for study to improve insect taxonomy and classifications, the cornerstone of biology, while they still exist. This work will also result in knowledge on the diversity and evolution of two main target groups: 1) the spider beetles which are arguably the most poorly known group of African beetles, and 2) the dung beetles that are still very poorly known and studied. The latter group is also ecologically unstudied in this region and is of great interest because of the complex communities and behaviors exhibited. They are also indicative of ecosystem health and hence extremely useful to conservation organizations. The broader impacts include a better understanding of African tropical forest biodiversity, its evolution, ecology, and biogeography. Additionally, the vital aspect of student training, developing a systematics infrastructure in Ghana, partnering with the primary conservation agency in this country, and creating web accessible information on insects will lead to better education of citizens of Ghana and the United States and hopefully protection of the irreplaceable natural heritage of biodiversity in the Upper Guinean forests of West Africa.
