This award provides travel support for doctoral student Ms. Josephine Rodriguez, and an undergraduate who will be trained to assist her, working under the guidance of Dr. James Whitfield, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to conduct research on the parasitoid groups of the Microgastrinae at the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG) in Costa Rica. Dr. Dan Janzen will be her local mentor at ACG. Plans are to assess the overall diversity and richness of the species, increase taxonomic understanding and use molecular phylogenetics to address specific hypotheses.
The research activities of this proposal will serve to advance understanding of issues in insect biology and biodiversity and provide opportunities for increasing data on tropical insect biodiversity. The project activities will involve an undergraduate and 30 Costa Rican parataxonomists, and will advance the training of a female scientist. Materials generated from this research will be shared with other researchers at ACG, and will contribute to further studies in the field.
