BioScience 50, 899-908 (2000)

Quantifying biodiversity: experiences with parataxonomists and digital photography in New Guinea and Guyana.
Yves Basset, Vojtech Novotny, Scott E. Miller and Richard Pyle

Abstract

Our experience shows that ecological research in the tropics can benefit from collaboration with local people. This is a viable alternative to work with local university students as such students are rarely available. Training of students and parataxonomists in this way could be one strategy to quickly inventory the wealth of biodiversity in tropical countries. Our sampling and processing protocols, which integrate low-cost collecting methods, training and computer technology, are appropriate for our research goals and take advantage of the three following elements: (1) knowledge of the environment by local people; (2) recent developments in computer hardware (e.g., speed and mass storage), which make digital photography a useful tool available at a relatively low cost; and (3) higher data quality due to the increased number of replicates and side experiments performed by the parataxonomists. Item (3) has not been appreciated enough by tropical ecologists. Due to the high spatial and temporal heterogeneity of ecological factors in rainforests, a high numbers of replicates, even at the expense of lower accuracy, are likely to shed light on interesting biological patterns. Our self-contained approach may deserve further consideration and should not be limited to insect taxa. We anticipate that scientists of both developing and developed countries will rely increasingly in the future on local assistants/parataxonomists to carry out small-scale ecological projects in rainforest habitats, rather than mega-projects often difficult to fund.