Freshwater resources are critical to ecosystem and human health. Aquatic insects are effective indicators of these resources but are not widely used in northern South America because many species remain undescribed and their disturbance tolerances are unknown. This project will address this problem by extensively surveying aquatic insects, particularly beetles, in northern Venezuela in tandem with water chemistry and human disturbance data. Subsequent laboratory work will focus on describing newly discovered species as well as examining patterns of species richness, seasonality, and distribution.
This 4-year project will (1) discover an estimated 400 undescribed species of aquatic insects and result in the description of ca. 200 new beetle species, (2) Add more than 150,000 specimens to US and Venezuelan museum collections, (3) provide quantitative, baseline water quality data to detect and examine the impact of and differentiate between environmental change and human development, and (4) train US and Latin American graduate students and provide research experiences for undergraduates students at the University of Kansas and the University of New Mexico. Collaborations with several Venezuelan universities and development of extensive cyberinfrastructure, including online-accessible specimen databases, historical literature, and identification resources, will provide a foundation for future work on aquatic insects throughout tropical South America.
Venezuela, a country more than twice the size of California, is situated along the northern coast of South America and spans a variety of major ecosystems including the Andes, tropical savannas, and the Amazon rainforest. Due to pressures from natural resource extraction and a changing global climate, the monitoring and assessment of freshwater resources are increasingly important in the region. The use of aquatic invertebrates to monitor freshwater systems (or "bioassessment") is common in some countries such as the US, but in Venezuela (like many tropical countries), these metrics are not as well developed due in part to a poorly known invertebrate fauna. In this project, we worked to reduce this knowledge gap by surveying select groups of aquatic insects and taking water quality measurements in northern Venezuela. We focused most of our efforts on beetles (Coleoptera), true bugs (Hemiptera) and caddisflies (Trichoptera). Over the course of this project, together with our counterparts at Venezuelan institutions, we sampled aquatic insects at more 250 localities it the country. More than 200,000 specimens were collected and now serve as reference collections at several US and Venezuelan institutions. More than 80,000 of these specimens were individually prepared and entered into publicly available databases. We provided resources and training in specimen database development to two Venezuelan institutions, and also retroactively digitized numerous specimens that were already present in museum collections. To date, this project contributed to 29 peer-reviewed publications, which included the description of 9 new genera and 180 new species of beetles, bugs, and caddisflies (more than 100 of these are from Venezuela). Prior to this project, we estimated there to be approximately 203 aquatic beetle species recorded from Venezuela; presently, we have documented at least 550 aquatic beetle species and this number is likely to continue rising. This project has developed and employed new methods for integrating museum specimen data with other types of field data such as field images, field logs, and water quality information. Specifically, these new workflows make it easier to access and cross-link otherwise disparate pieces of data. These new methods are applicable to and enhance any specimen-based biotic inventory project. We also developed a series of illustrated, online identification keys to the aquatic beetle groups of South America. These keys will facilitate research on these groups in the region and beyond. Our project has had a significant focus on student training and capacity building both in the US and within Venezuela. We involved 10 undergraduate, 6 US graduate students from the University of Kansas, University of New Mexico, and the University of Minnesota in research and fieldwork. We participated in a number of training events in Venezuela, including hosting a digital scientific illustration workshop at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. We outlined the importance of gathering such data along with our project results at various venues, including training courses at the Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas and the Universidad del Zulia. Students (both graduate and undergraduate) and collaborators presented results at numerous US venues, including national meetings of the Entomological Society of America.
