Dear PCES Entomology Community, My name is David Wyatt and I am a biology professor in the Field Ecology program at Sacramento City College - and a past president of PCES many moons ago. I am in need of taxonomic help with insects that we will be bringing back from Belize this June. Seven biologists (including myself) are going to Belize to establish in Belize a research collection of insects collected in the northern Maya Mountains. This is an area that is very biodiversity rich but has up to now had very few biodiversity studies of that location - and no available entomology collections housed in Belize.
In addition to establishing the entomology collection, we are also collaborating with the Biodiversity Center of Belize to conduct DNA barcoding of specimens we collect. Duplicate specimens will be returned with us to California with the Bohart Museum of Entomology storing most of these insects. To help us identify these specimens, I am requesting assistance from the entomology community for your various areas of expertise. Please feel free to send me an email with your interest in helping out with this project (and please note your areas of expertise). My contact information is provided in the signature block below. We are crowdsourcing for the equipment (24-30 Cal Acad drawers and other equipment) and field station costs. For more information about the project and/or to support the research, please visit the website we have established for the work. The website is: https://experiment.com/projects/cataloging-insect-and-bat-diversity-in-belize Be sure to check out the short video as well as the tabs (Abstract and Lab Notes). We would really appreciate your support for the project and look forward to working with you for species determinations. Cheers, David Wyatt davidwy...@mac.com<mailto:davidwy...@mac.com> wya...@scc.losrios.edu<mailto:wya...@scc.losrios.edu> (916) 531-0953 (cell) (916) 558-2406 (work)
