Vast Diversity of Arthropods in Small Patch of Rain Forest
Insect diversity is linked to diversity in plants, study finds.
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These findings are part of Project IBISCA-Panama, an extensive survey of arthropods in Panama's San Lorenzo forest supported by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The study, published in this week's issue of Science, revealed that an estimated 25,000 species of arthropods exist in the 6,000-hectare forest. By tallying these small organisms, researchers hope to get a better grasp of their many roles in the rain forest ecosystem.
"Arthropods are important in all the functions of the forest: pollination, early decomposition, [consumption] of leaves in the forest, [providing] nutrients in soil, and regeneration of [the] forest," says Yves Basset, scientific coordinator of the Institute's CFTS Arthropod
