Southeastern biodiversity

SOUTHEASTERN BIODIVERSITY

The southeastern United States is one of the world's richest temperate biomes. The combination of relatively mild winters, high topographical complexity, and high rainfall create ideal conditions for arthropods to flourish. While many thousands of arthropod species are already known for the region, new species are discovered and named frequently. Furthermore, comprehensive information on this fauna is very hard to come by, scattered, as it is, among dozens of collections and hundreds of publications.

Our goals include more complete exploration of this rich region for insects, undertaking intensive field surveys to discover more cryptic and elusive species, and better organizing the data that do exist, compiling faunistic lists, linked to specimen data in collections and publications, to facilitate ecological and conservation work on these species.

Recent work has particularly emphasized the litter fauna of the southern Appalachians, especially the higher elevations, where a unique coniferous forest occurs. Levels of arthropod endemism in these 'sky islands' are poorly documented, but hinted at by several lineages, including Trechus ground beetles, Geostiba rove beetles, and others (especially arachnids studied by Marshall Hedin's group at San Diego State University).

Some high Appalachian litter arthropods:

During 2017 we conducted extensive fieldwork at Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge. Sampling covered over 40 different locations around the Refuge, utilizing flight intercept traps, Malaise traps, pitfall traps, Lindgren funnel traps, and blacklighting, in addition to litter sifting and various general collecting techniques. We prepared over 5500 specimens from this work, which included over 1000 beetle species (well, morphospecies). These included a number of new state records, including a histerid recently described from Oklahoma, Louisiana and Florida, Baconia stephani Caterino & Tishechkin, and a couple species of myrmecophilous staphylinids (including the introduced fire-ant guest Myrmecosaurus ferrugineus).

Baconia stephani:

An FIT in scrub oak/pine woodland:

A road through well developed oak/pine forest, with sandy substrate visible in the tracks: