Nature & Environment

Panama rainforest home to 25,000 species

By T.K. Randall
December 18, 2012 ·  7 comments

Image Credit: CC 3.0 Prsjl The largest ever survey of insects, spiders and other arthropods involving more than 100 scientists and lasting more than a decade has helped to reveal the incredible variety of species that live in the Panama rainforest. The task of cataloging the abundance of species in the region is notoriously difficult due to the creatures' small size and inaccessible habitats. To combat this, scientists used a number of different techniques such as climbing tree trunks and deploying helium balloons to reach the forest canopy.

"This is the first time that diversity of all types of arthropods has been quantified from a tropical rainforest," said ecologist Tomas Roslin. The results identified the presence of more than 25,000 arthropod species in the forest, 60% to 70% of which being previously unknown.[!gad]The largest ever survey of insects, spiders and other arthropods involving more than 100 scientists and lasting more than a decade has helped to reveal the incredible variety of species that live in the Panama rainforest. The task of cataloging the abundance of species in the region is notoriously difficult due to the creatures' small size and inaccessible habitats. To combat this, scientists used a number of different techniques such as climbing tree trunks and deploying helium balloons to reach the forest canopy.

"This is the first time that diversity of all types of arthropods has been quantified from a tropical rainforest," said ecologist Tomas Roslin. The results identified the presence of more than 25,000 arthropod species in the forest, 60% to 70% of which being previously unknown.

Source: Wired | Comments (7)

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