Tessera

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund

@gdfcf.bsky.social

GDFCF is the nonprofit partner to the Área de Conservación Guanacaste; our aim is to ensure this large protected area survives in perpetuity.

21 Posts119 Follower 67 Folgt

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last wk.

Tropical insects may be running out of room as temperatures rise | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Tropical insects may be running out of room as temperatures rise

Significance: Empirical evaluations of thermal tolerance for tropical species are sparse, and this reduces our capacity to anticipate the impact of the climate crisis on the undescribed morass of wild...

eurekalert.org

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last wk.

🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ The little things of ACG are teaching us much about the world. We enthusiastically thank ACG for protecting & preserving these species & spaces. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

photo of cloud forest at the top of Volcan Cacao

photo of Dan and Winnie and Alex at the Malaise trap at the top of Volcan Cacao

photo of Al and Alex at the top of Volcan Cacao

gigapan of cloud forest at the top of Volcan Cacao

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last wk.

🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ However, as predicted by Janzen’s Mountain Passes, most of these species do not move much; and eventually, there will be nowhere higher to go. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵

photo of Dan Janzen at the top of Volcan Cacao

photo of rain/cloud forest intergrade on Volcan Cacao

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last wk.

🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ How to deal with the climate crisis? Refuge in the soil may provide temporary respite from rising temp. Larger spp that can move may move upslope and find respite in cooler temperatures. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵

a photo of an irridescent green ACG staphylinind

Hawkins plot_volcan_cacao_la_cima
Departures from the norm in the cloud forest at Volcan Cacao are shown here as vertical bars coloured by how high above, or below that norm each day was. Temperatures in the cloud forest are increasing. Image credit: Alex Smith

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last wk.

🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ Tropical forest communities are vulnerable across elevation in different ways. This highlights the critical protective role that the ÁCG plays in preserving habitat these species and others like them. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵

A year of temperature across elevation
A year of daily maximum temperature values across the elevational gradient sampled here (hot dry forests at the bottom moving up slope through mid-elevation rain forest and into high elevation cloud forests). Each day at each of eight locations is shown as a vertical bar with the colour of that bar illustrating the intensity of the daily maximum temperature. Image credit: Alex Smith

a species of staphylinid from the genus Stenus from ACG

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last wk.

🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ High-elev cloud forest spp r likely not capable of dealing with the coming temp. Low-elev dry forest spp, have higher heat tolerances, but r already exposed to temps that can exceed their thermal limits. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵

photo of rain forest above the station on volcan cacao

photo of dry forest above near Santa Rosa

image from the paper illustrating how the safety margin of the soil (difference between heat tolerance of species and the 215 averaged maximum soil temperature of the collection site) changes with elevation

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last wk.

🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ Diverse tropical leaf litter-dwelling rove beetles in Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) Costa Rica (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), show how thermal tolerance can change with elevation. @gdfcf.bsky.social fcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

image from paper illustrating the decline with elevation of environmental temperature and the CTmax.

photo of an acg staphylinid with coloured text of a DNA barcode

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last wk.

🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ When are things too hot to handle? Our new paper on insect thermal tolerance across elevation in @pnas.org nas.org suggest perhaps not too far in the future. @gdfcf.bsky.social sky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵

photo of dorsal view of 15 species of staphylinid from ACG

photo of an array of tubs containing ACG staphylinids with light in the background

photo of strangler fig standing in cloud in ACG

photo of co-authors Smith and Loureiro in ACG

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 2w ago

New research from Área de Conservación Guanacaste! Congratulations @natingui.bsky.social and @isabelvargas.bsky.social #womeninscience #woodthrush #cienciatica #bioave #costarica #birds

Natalie V. Sánchez@natingui.bsky.social · 2w ago

New paper 🇨🇷🎙️🎶🐦 Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) occupancy patterns reveal sensitivity to low precipitation on nonbreeding grounds in northern Costa Rica - Ibis - Wiley onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @gdfcf.bsky.social @uwindsor.bsky.social @wildlifeacoustics.com #cienciatica

Rachel L. Walsh @swamplily.bsky.social · last mo.

New study shows there may be 2-3x as many insect species as previously estimated, owing significantly to the diversity of parasitoid wasps!

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last mo.

🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 How many species of insect are there? A seemingly simple question, but one that has been 'bugging' scientists for years. Our work out today suggests that there are millions more than we had previously expected. doi.org/10.1073/pnas... @gdfcf.bsky.social

This photo was taken in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last mo.

🧪 "Más de tres décadas de investigación en el ACG transforman la estimación mundial" "More than three decades of research at the ACG are transforming global estimates." www.acguanacaste.ac.cr/noticias/not...

Más de tres décadas de investigación en el ACG transforman la estimación mundial

Más de tres décadas de investigación en el ACG transforman la estimación mundial de especies de insectos Este trabajo demuestra que la conservación y la investigación científica de largo plazo generan...

acguanacaste.ac.cr

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · last mo.

This isn't just a paper about insects. It's a demonstration of what decades of biodiversity inventory, conservation, and scientific collaboration can achieve. Congratulations to Dan & Winnie, the parataxonomists, and all the authors on this remarkable PNAS publication. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last mo.

🧪 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 "Study finds number of insect species on Earth is more than double previous estimates" 🎁link to a wonderful article by @ivansemeniuk.bsky.social in the @theglobeandmail.com about our #OA PNAS paper doi.org/10.1073/pnas.... @gdfcf.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/c231c7b...

Study finds number of insect species on Earth is more than double previous estimates

Research shows there could be at least 20 million different insect species

theglobeandmail.com

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last mo.

🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 In many ways, the deeper story is that patient, long-term inventory work in one very special place, involving the people of that place, has generated insights about biodiversity at a global scale. @gdfcf.bsky.social doi.org/10.1073/pnas... grateful to have been part of the team🧵

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last mo.

🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 In our paper, we (an international team of authors) root our answer in the globally unique biodiversity hotspot, (and UNESCO World Heritage Site), in northwestern Costa Rica, the Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). @gdfcf.bsky.social

Authors clockwise from top left: Laura Melissa Guzman, Robert K. Colwell, Michael J. Sharkey and Anne Chao (with Alan Turing). R.K.C., L.M.G, and M.J.S contributed equally to this work and the statistical underpinnings were critically dependent on Anne Chao's estimations.

photo of Winnie Hallwachs, Alex Smith and Dan Janzen on the top of Volcan Cacao in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (2008).

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · last mo.

This microgastrine wasp was named by co-author Jose Fernandez-Triana in honour of Costa Rican parataxonomist Roberto Espinoza in recognition of his contribution to understanding the plant biology of ACG. The species is Snellenius robertoespinozai. The image is Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) so can reused provided the original author (Jose Fernandez-Triana) and the source are properly cited. The source is: Fernandez-Triana JL, Whitfield JB, Smith MA, Kula RR, Hallwachs W, Janzen DH (2015) Revision of the genera Microplitis and Snellenius (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, Costa Rica, with a key to all species previously described from Mesoamerica. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 62(2): 137-201. https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.62.5276

image of a Malaise trap in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste

ZooKeys @zookeys.pensoft.net · 3mo ago

A new species of scale-covered marine worm, Sthenelais onca, has been documented along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It is characterised by a jaguar-like color pattern! Read more: zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1764...

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 3mo ago

NEW SPECIES ALERT! Researchers with the BioMar project have discovered a new species of marine worm in Área de Conservación Guanacaste. #newspecies #biodiversity #costarica #science #marineworm #marinebiodiversity Read more here: zookeys.pensoft.net/art.../17644...

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Our latest newsletter is out today. Please read and share. Thank you! mailchi.mp/eee818ebe3bb...

Greetings from the Dry Season

mailchi.mp

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Inspired by this @karaman.is #TidyTuesday example to use his format to plot elevation rather than depth! Here are three years of air temperature data across 1500 m of elevation in #ACG #CostaRica from sea level (outer band) to cloud forest (centre) 🙏 for the example!! @gdfcf.bsky.social

Concentric circles representing mean temperature at elevations along Volcan cacao in a CG in Costa Rica. For the years 2023 to 2025. Inspired by the beautiful example in the quoted post !

Georgios Karamanis@karaman.is · 4mo ago

This week's #TidyTuesday dataset is seven years of daily ocean temperature measurements from Nova Scotia's coastline, recorded at depths down to 40 metres by the Centre for Marine Applied Research Code: github.com/gkaramanis/t... #RStats #dataviz

A grid of small charts on a light grey background titled "Nova Scotia's Ocean Pulse." Rows represent years and columns represent months. Each panel shows ocean depth as concentric rings (shallower on the outside, deeper toward the centre) and mean water temperature as color using a green-yellow-red diverging palette. Summer months show warmer temperatures in the outer (shallow) rings fading to cooler temperatures at the centre. Winter months are predominantly cooler throughout. A small legend in the upper left explains that depth increases inward. Subtitle reads "Seven years of daily coastal temperature measurements at depths of 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40 metres, from the Centre for Marine Applied Research." Caption reads "Source: Centre for Marine Applied Research · Graphic: Georgios Karamanis."

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🌿✨ A new species for science! Meet Cryptocarya costaricana, a newly described tree in the family Lauraceae. 🇨🇷 Co-authored by botanist Nelson Zamora, who works closely with the parataxonomists on the ACG plant bioinventory. www.scilit.com/publications...

Dr Ross Barnett @deepfrieddna.bsky.social · 5mo ago

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘I love midges because I know what their hearts look like’: is the passion for taxonomy in danger of dying out?

Insect taxonomist Art Borkent has described and named more than 300 species of midges but fears his field of science is dying out, despite millions of insects, fungi and other organisms waiting to be ...

theguardian.com

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 5mo ago

“What I see when I'm walking through the forest, I just do not feel that the birds are having any kind of food,” Dan Janzen says. “No insects.” Birds are vanishing from tropical forests. Is another ‘silent spring’ coming? | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Birds are vanishing from tropical forests. Is another ‘silent spring’ coming?

As mysterious bird declines crop up in the Amazon and beyond, scientists suspect climate change may be to blame

science.org

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Here’s a view of a deceased Costa Rican nightjar slowly being turned into Costa Rican ants in #ACG @gdfcf.bsky.social youtube.com/shorts/kqwsY...

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🧪🪰🧪 More #ACG diversity described! Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. Fleming AJ, Smith MA, Hallwachs W, Janzen D (2025) A new genus and a new species in the tribe Eryciini ( #Diptera , #Tachinidae ) from Area de Conservación Guanacaste. @bdj.pensoft.net doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.... @gdfcf.bsky.social

Lateral view of the fly Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. habitus images, male, holotype n. DHJPAR0019111 from Figure 5.

lateral view of the head and eye of
Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. habitus images, male, holotype n. DHJPAR0019111 from Figure 5.

infographic of new genus and species of ACG parasitic fly, Santarosamyia woodorum. Images within the infographic show the various orientations of the type and paratype individuals for the new species, phylogenies of how this taxon relates to other species within the same subfamily and an image of the DNA barcode variation present within the new species other morphologically similar species.

screen grab of the etymology and ecology of the new species

Etymology
Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. is named in honour of Dr. D. Monty Wood (1933–2020) and Grace Wood for their many years of dedication to the study of Diptera and, in particular, the family Tachinidae of ACG. Their legacy lives in Monty's invaluable contributions to science and the countless people he educated and collaborated with. Interim species-specific names for Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov., included in previously circulating databases and publications, are tachinidWood12 Wood01 and Nilea Wood01.

Distribution
Costa Rica, ACG, Guanacaste Province, 20–326 m elevation.

Ecology
Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. has been reared twelve times from at least two species of Lepidoptera in the family Crambidae: Omiodes cuniculalis Guenée, 1854 (n = 3), Eulepte Janzen06 (n = 1) and Eulepte concordalis Hübner, 1825 (n = 7) and one species in the family Pyralidae: Chloropaschia granitalis (C. Felder, R. Felder & Rogenhofer, 1875) (n = 1) in dry fo
rest, at elevations ranging from 20–326 m.

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🍃Our End of Year newsletter is just out today! Thank you to all of our supporters for helping us protect one of the most remarkable places on the planet: Área de Conservación Guanacaste. Happy Holidays! mailchi.mp/040b71d05c06...

Season's Greetings from GDFCF!

mailchi.mp

Natalie V. Sánchez @natingui.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Successful Master's thesis defense of my student Isabel Vargas at the University of Costa Rica. She studied environmental and forest structure factors affecting Wood Thrush occupancy in Northern Costa Rica Project funded by @gdfcf.bsky.social

Catherine Hulshof @hulshof.bsky.social · 10mo ago

"After 55 years, the world’s most ambitious caterpillar inventory will come to a close. This monumental project in ACG has reared 870,000 caterpillars, of 8,000 species of butterflies and moths, and 18,000 species of wasp parasites—all documented by a team that grew to 30 local parataxonomists."

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund@gdfcf.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Happy to share our latest newsletter! The latest GDFCF and Area de Conservación Guanacaste news is here: mailchi.mp/54601d57a15d...

Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Happy to share our latest newsletter! The latest GDFCF and Area de Conservación Guanacaste news is here: mailchi.mp/54601d57a15d...

Greetings from the Late Rainy Season

mailchi.mp

🍁 Alex Smith 🍁@alexsmithants.bsky.social · 11mo ago

🧪 Very honored/excited to take part in this paper analysing & releasing 🐛 caterpillar rearing info from #ACG #CostaRica collected by #DanJanzen and #WinnieHallwachs and the #parataxonomists of @gdfcf.bsky.social doi.org/10.3389/fevo... Figures from data available at doi.org/10.5683/SP3/...

Figure of the decline of caterpillars collected in ACG over time since the standardisation of the paratxonomist workforce in 2005 (black line). The red line tracks the proportion of the collected caterpillars that were parasitised - also declining.

Lepidopteran abundance in ACG is declining (Janzen and Hallwachs 2021). While the trajectory of species within individual families may differ in the specifics from the overall trend (Figure X, Janzen and Hallwachs 2021) it is clear that in most cases, once the parataxonomist workforce stablised in ~2005 (that is – the individuals in the forests of ACG collecting caterpillars and leaves), there has been a marked decline collections of lepidoptera and their fly and wasp parasitoids. Over this same time-period, the seasonal rains in the dry forest and low-elevation rain forest have become more erratic and the temperatures of air and soil are creeping upwards in all forest ecosystems – especially the high elevation rain forest and cloud forest (Janzen and Hallwachs 2021, Smith 2023). Thus, although the evident declines documented here may not solely due to climate change – the rapidity and force of the abiotic changes to these forests are involved in these declines. Some taxa may be capable of moving upslope or towards the wetter forests of the Caribbean (Warne et al 2020), but many will, or can, not. These observations parallel other observations of reductions in the diversity and abundance of caterpillars and their parasitoids within a protected area that are at least partially due to changing climate (Salcido et al 2020).