The CarBio project officially took off with a successful workshop at the University of Puerto Rico on July 15, 2011. A total of 15 project participants attended the workshop, thereof five UPR undergraduate students (Diego Agostini, Laura Caicedo, Angela Alicea, Jose Rivera, Paola Arroyo), two undergraduate students from Lewis and Clark College (Trevor Bloom, Ian Peterson), three UPR graduate students (Heine Kiesbuy, Zamira Yusseff Vanegas, Sean Kelly), local collaborator Hannah Madden (St. Eusticius), collaborators Lauren Esposito and Nadine Duperre, and PI's Greta Binford and Ingi Agnarsson, plus two invited speakers Santiago Eugenio and Richard Thomas.
The team ready for field action! Photo by H. Madden
The following day the team headed to El Yunque National Forest for collecting. Three days (and nights) of collecting resulted in approximately 5000 arachnid specimens representing approximately 20 spider (Araneae) families, in addition to a diversity of scorpions (Scorpiones), harvestmen (Opiliones), tailless whip scorpions (Amblypygi), and pseudoscorpions (Pseudoscorpiones). We collected approximately 46 species of our focal taxa, and probably well over 100 species of other taxa. Following El Yunque the team moved to Guanica dry forest Biosphere Reserve. We found a similar number and diversity of arachinds in Guanica, with very little overlap in species diversity with El Yunque. We added the order of Camel Spiders (Solifugae) to our list, and likely over 100 species of arachnids.
The team is now getting ready to head to Mata de Platano, moist forest in the karst region, and Toro Negro, the highest elevation forest in Puerto Rico.
Overall, we're excited about the success to date!
The team is now getting ready to head to Mata de Platano, moist forest in the karst region, and Toro Negro, the highest elevation forest in Puerto Rico.
Overall, we're excited about the success to date!
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