#parataxonomists
LightNews LightNews
gdfcf.bsky.social
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/...
July 1, 2026 at 10:22 AM
alexsmithants.bsky.social
On #BiologicalDiversityDay I reflect on the privilege and responsibility I feel to work with the passionate people of ACG and @gdfcf.bsky.social to help to share stories of the tens upon tens of thousands of little things that run the world.
image from Volcan Cacao in ACG around 1000m elevation image of Smith with Manuel and Dunia - two of the parataxonomists who work on Volcan Cacao image of parataxonomists Manuel and Dunia walking up to the Estacion Cacao Image of Volcan Cacao from ~1400m entering the cloud forest
May 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
hulshof.bsky.social
"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."
gdfcf.bsky.social Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · Sep 26
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
September 26, 2025 at 10:44 AM
alexsmithants.bsky.social
🧪🧵
🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟

Highly collaborative work is directly rooted in decades of biodiversity inventory in ACG — the Lep inventory begun by Dan Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs, the work of the #parataxonomists, Malaise trapping, DNA barcoding, and global taxonomic collaborations.

doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Parataxonomist Harry Ramirez tending a Malaise trap on Volcan Cacao, Area de Conservacion Guanacaste Parataxonomist Guillermo Pereira, tending a Malaise trap on Volcan Rincon de la Vieja in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste Parataxonomist Manuel Pereira, tending a Malaise trap on Volcan Rincon de la Vieja in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste
June 29, 2026 at 7:50 PM
gdfcf.bsky.social
🌿✨ 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...
April 4, 2026 at 8:49 PM
alexsmithants.bsky.social
🧪
🪰

Happy to see this large data release and analysis of decades of #tachinidae collected by #DanJanzen, #WinnieHallwachs and the #parataxonomists of #ACG @gdfcf.bsky.social in #CostaRica. So much diversity!

Paper here:
doi.org/10.3390/d170...

Data here:
doi.org/10.5683/SP3/...

🪰
🧪
Figure 1. Four representative tachinid species from ACG. (A) Patelloa ‘xanthuraDHJ01’ voucher DHJPAR0034758; (B) Chorotegamyia sp.; (C) Spathidexia atripalpus; (D) Phosocephala alexanderi female voucher DHJPAR0048468. Photo credits - AJ Fleming CNC bipartite diagram showing the host-specificity of ACG tachinids in the genus Belvosia. Species in red were formerly known as one species that is now known to be three by host-use and genetics. Where formalised names exist, they are largely honoring ACG paraxonomists. Venn diagram of the overlap between the diversity of ACG tachinids known from rearing larval lepidoptera versus those that are collected in Malaise traps. Only 18.5% overlap. Evident decline in the abundance of tachinid parasaitoids (here counts/year for the two most abundant subfamilies) in ACG after the stabalisation of the parataxonomist collection workforce in ~2005
September 23, 2025 at 8:19 PM
alexsmithants.bsky.social
🧪

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). Bipartite figure of relationships between Erebidae caterpillars and their host plants in ACG. The bipartite network of Erebidae species and host plants had a high network-wide estimate of specialisation (H2' = 0.894 Blüthgen et al., 2006) where values close to 0 indicate extreme generalization and those closer to 1 indicate specialization (Blüthgen et al., 2006). Specialisation can be visualized in Figure y by the broad blue links that connect some of the most common species of caterpillar to their host plant. For example, two species of Phaeoblemma (P. apicata and P. dares) were found only on two species of the Fabaceae, Senna (S. obtusifolia and S. papillosa). Smaller links flow out of these Senna to indicate that these species have also been, much more infrequently, food for 17 other species of Erebidae in this matrix. In another example, two Dysschema species (D. jansonis and D. leucophaea) both consume the Asteraceae Lepidaploa tortuosa – but this host plant has been found associated with 32 other species in the reduced matrix.
September 18, 2025 at 7:57 PM
natingui.bsky.social
Day 1 and 2 of our December field trip to Guanacaste for the BioAve project @gdfcf_org monitoring Wood Thrush 🐦 in the Caribbean forest of 🇨🇷 working with local parataxonomists Petrona Ríos, Manuel Ríos and @IsabelVargasCR UCR Maters student.
December 5, 2024 at 11:29 PM
natingui.bsky.social
Talk about BioAve project @ACGuanacaste for the parataxonomists. Thank you @gdfcf_org for the invitation to this workshop! 🐦🎶🇨🇷🇨🇦
December 5, 2024 at 11:18 PM