Services - Molecular Services

CMNHhome

RESEARCH
Biodiversity
Systematics
Natural History
Faunistics &
Biogeography

BIODIVERSITY
SERVICES FACILITY

BSF Client Website
Identification
Collection Services
Molecular Services

Tigermoth Bertholdia Ecuador


	Invertebrate Zoology is involved with a number of projects focused on study on Pennsylvania fauna or involving species which occur in the state. The information gathered from these projects allows conservationists and government managers to be more aware of the health of natural ecosystems. Current projects including the Pennsylvania biota are listed elsewhere under Biodiversity Studies in Pennsylvania. Survey and monitoring programs provide data that is of immediate use to people trying to conserve natural systems, but these projects are also carefully designed to contribute directly to basic research questions on individual species, habitats, and interactions. Some examples follow from our region and elsewhere. Pittsburgh BioBlitz 2001. A 24-hour biological survey of Pittsburgh's Schenley Park that focused media and public attention on biodiversity (June 15-16). Because most of life on earth is invertebrate, most invertebrates are arthropods, most arthropods are insects, and most insects are beetles(!!), Carnegie Museum of Natural History entomologists had their hands full, especially the coleopterists!
			Survey of Non-Target Insects in Gypsy Moth Susceptible Forests, Cheat Ranger District, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia. Funded by Monongahela National Forest, USDA Forest Service, Elkins, West Virginia. With a final report now being written, this extremely diverse assessment of forest insect diversity was made in a wide range of habitat-types from high spruce uplands to floodplain thickets. In design very similar to the oak-type study conducted on the Allegheny National Forest, this study will characterize the insects and associated plants of the Cheat Ranger District in unprecedented detail. The study reports the discovery of new species and rigorous documentation of seasonal phenology patterns and correlations with vegetation. (Collaboration with CMNH Botany).