2005 All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) Grant Awards

Grant money supplied to Discover Life in America by the Great Smoky Mountains Association and Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park is supporting All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory research in the Park for the 2005 season. Dr. John Morse, Discover Life in America Board member and Science Committee Co-Chair, administers the grant program, now in its sixth year. The review panel included eight DLIA scientists. Requests totaled $155,888.80 for the $52,500 budgeted for this year, so it was particularly difficult for the reviewers to decide among the many fine proposals. Links to the grant summaries are below.

Eighteen proposals were funded out of a total of 38 submitted. The research will delve into a variety of life forms in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, including diatoms, ants, aphids, beetles, moths and butterflies, thrips, lichens, tephritid flies, diptera, pollinators, water mites, and tardigrades. One of this year’s projects involves teachers and students designing and conducting scientific research in the Park. Bio-quests for fungi and beetles were funded. Some of the proposals are continuations of previous and on-going work. All are coordinated with the Discover Life in America Science Plan.

As part of the inventory of the algae in the GSMNP, this project proposes to focus on the ecology and image-rich documentation of the acid loving diatom Eunotia, which is taxonomically diverse, and likely contains species that are endemic to the GSMNP, restricted in range, or new to science. Over 36 species of Eunotia have been found in the park thus far and it is predicted that the GSMNP supports an even more diverse community of Eunotia both in terms of number of species and geographical distribution. Eunotia species can flourish in the park because of the aquatic and aerial habitats that are 5 ö 10X more acidic than normal, in combination with the presence of a complex geology and range of altitudes. Understanding the ecology and distribution patterns of Eunotia in the GSMNP will help scientists and conservation biologists track changes in the environment associated with habitat acidification.

Water mites are an abundant, diverse, and ecologically important group of invertebrates found in most freshwater ecosystems including streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes. They are important in regulating other invertebrates, particularly aquatic insect larvae, through parasitic and predatory stages in their life cycle. Abundant and diverse water mite populations have has been shown to be associated with good environmental quality. Over 5,000 species have been recognized worldwide, and over 1,500 species are currently estimated to occur in North America, north of Mexico. The principal investigator has collected water mites for the past 40 years in North America and estimates that there are several hundred species living in the southeastern United States. Our objectives are to contribute information on water mite diversity to the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, use this information for taxonomic revision, and provide taxonomic information to aquatic ecologists that study the structure and dynamics of freshwater communities.

Pyrenomycetes represent one of the largest groups of fungi, but are also one of the most poorly known most likely due to their small size (usually <1mm diameter). These organisms occur throughout all geographical areas on plant material and dung, where they play an essential role in nutrient cycling and decomposition of organic matter. Pyreno Pursuit will be held September 5-9, 2005 and is the first attempt to bring together experts to inventory the diversity of pyrenomycetes in the GSMNP. Preliminary collecting in the Park indicates a high diversity of pyrenomycetes with over 70% of collected species representing new Park records and at least 5% representing species new to science. Products resulting from this bioblitz include: 1) a species checklist, 2) a georeferenced database with distribution and host data, and 3) fresh material which will be used in creating species web pages and identification guides.

The Southern Appalachians are the oldest mountains in North America, existing for at least 500 million years. Small, wingless and often blind primitive insects were some of the first animals to live on land, possibly including the Appalachian Mountains. Today the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the home of many of these primitive insects. We know very little about these inhabitants of the park. Preliminary data from collections during the past five years indicates there are many species unknown to science. During the summer of 2005 Dr. Robert T. Allen will spend approximately two months intensively surveying the GSMNP, collecting, identifying, and studying three of these ancient insect orders (the diplurans, jumping springtails, and silverfish). Dr. Allen's project is part of a larger program sponsored by Discover Life In America and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Ants are hyperdiverse and nearly ubiquitous in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Moreover, they drive diversity in other groups and affect ecosystem processes by dispersing seeds of understory herbs, modifying soil processes, engaging in mutualisms with other species, and preying on still others. The work proposed here extends previous work in three ways: (i) sampling leaf litter ants at at least 11 elevations to encompass more environmental variation, (ii) sampling three particularly diverse sites intensively for several consecutive months, and (iii) continuing to process specimens from Year 1 and Chuck Parker's how to conduct an ATBI pilot study. Through ongoing studies, we hope to make the GSMNP ant fauna one of the best known in the U.S.

This project will increase the knowledge of the biological diversity of thrips (Class Insecta; Order Thysanoptera) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. During 2004 I worked on samples of thrips from the Park, but these were mainly from leaf-litter and involved little information on host plant relationships. In this new project, samples will be taken directly from flowers and leaves, and thus establish host associations including the level of host specificity. Information of thrips in this area is widely scattered, and this project will facilitate identification of thrips and provide a base line for biological and biodiversity studies. The goals of the project are to generate an annotated check-list of thrips species and genera found in the Park, with all the taxa referenced, to describe any new taxa in the samples, and to prepare a general introduction to the thrips fauna of the Park.

Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont will provide internships for two local K-12 teachers through which they will improve their science skills and knowledge of the ATBI through hands-on participation in ATBI research. The research will include inventories of algae, beetles, moths, and fungi, all of which represent current collaborations between GSMIT and ATBI scientists. At the end of their internships, the teachers will plan ways to incorporate the ATBI into their classroom curricula. Ultimately, this project will further the Discover Life in America goals of communicating the ATBI with a wider audience and involving teachers and students in ATBI projects.

Pollination is one of the most important and least known ecosystem functions. The relationships of bees to specific plants are still little known and while some bee species are broad generalists, other species may be much more specialized as to the plants they visit for pollen and nectar. This proposal seeks to achieve:

1. Identify bees and other insects associated with the blooms of 14 targeted rare plants and other flowering species at Purchase Knob and other sites in the park.
2. Continue to add to the park species list for bees.
3. Provide work experience to high school and college students or recent college graduates that will help them with their careers.
4. Produce species web pages for the genus Bombus (bumble bees) and as many other bee or host plant species as can be written within the timing of this project.

Crane flies (Tipuloidea) are a standout in taxonomic diversity within the exceedingly diverse Diptera, or true flies. With 15,000 world species they have successfully established themselves in an extraordinary array of habitats. Previous research has identified 251 species from the Smokies with an estimate of species richness of 500 species, or 19% of the North American fauna. Proposed research will investigate areas of the Park that have received little presence of collecting in the past with a goal of updating the park species list and increasing the knowledge of species distributions.

The true fruit flies are colorful insects whose immature stages are obligate plant feeders. GSMNP, with an estimated 60-70 species of fruit flies, is a hot spot of tephritid diversity, as it harbors over half of all the fruit fly species known from all of eastern North America. We will document their biologies, distributions, host relationships, and immature stages. Methods include mass-trapping, targeted collecting, and dissection of infested plants to reveal details of feeding, development time, mortality factors, parasites and predators. Species pages, distribution maps, and photos of flies and hosts will be posted on the Web.

The Diptera (flies) is one of the largest orders of insects, together with the Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, and Lepidoptera, and includes many of the most important medical/veterinary pests known to man, think of mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit! Their diversity in the GSMNP appears very high: a newly compiled, preliminary Diptera checklist includes nearly as many names as the Coleoptera checklist. We have extensively sampled Diptera in the Park since 1999 via over 2,000 trap-days of 6-meter Malaise trapping primarily at meadow-forest ecotones, and 100+ field days of hand collecting. This combination of trap type and habitat has generated bulk samples that are particularly rich in Diptera. Over 1,000 such samples are in storage at the Florida State Collection of Arthropods. Funding will allow the sorting of specimens to family, pinning, labeling, and distribution to specialists for identification, followed by entry of label data into the ATBI database.

The initial effort to list the species of Lepidoptera that occur in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is nearly completion. This effort has resulted in a list that is nearly complete for larger moths of the park and about half complete for the smaller moths (over 1,600 spp. Total). During 2004 the Lepidoptera TWIG refocused its efforts on gathering DNA and tissue samples from species in the park. With the cooperation of Dr. Paul Hebert (University of Guelph), we were able to obtain sequences of a segment of the CO1 gene from more than 600 species in the park and, with support from the American Museum of Natural History, have more than 200 species cryopreserved. This grant seeks to extend this dataset by sampling the large group of late-spring, early-summer Lepidoptera, and by using existing museum collections to obtain samples from very early, very late and rare species. These additional samples will help us reach our goal of 75% of the known park fauna sampled by the end of the year. This dataset will be very valuable to researchers working with groups of eastern Lepidoptera by allowing them to identify fragments and immature stages of insects, and providing potential clues about species identity in closely related pairs or groups of species.

Aphids are small plant-feeding insects with complicated life cycles. Species of aphids are generally restricted to a narrow taxonomic range of hosts, and host identity is usually necessary for correctly identifying an aphid. The 2005 season marks the third and final year of an aphid survey of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, already shown to harbor a diverse aphid fauna. In 2005, areas of the park that contain particular plants known to host aphids will be targeted for sampling, with particular emphasis given to those ecological areas not yet sampled. Among other plants, sedges, ferns, and asters will be targeted, and mud flats, balds, and other unique areas will be visited. Furthermore, many aphids are tended by ants, and working out aphid-ant relationships will be a secondary focus of the project.

This project will build on four years of research by the beetle taxonomic working group in support of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Two objectives will be undertaken. First, we will provide identifications and distributional data for two important plant-feeding families from ~1100 malaise trap samples generated by the Park's structured protocols. These datasets for long-horned beetles (Cerambycidae) and leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae) will facilitate the transition of these taxa from inventory to ecology phases of the Science Plan. Second, two manuscripts describing new species will be prepared. The first will describe a new species of forest litter-inhabiting ground beetle in the genus Anillinus. A second paper will describe a new genus and species of short-winged mold beetle and provide analytical data supporting its placement in the classification of the beetle family Staphylinidae, subfamily Pselaphinae. Species webpages will be produced for lepturine cerambycids and pselaphines.

Funding requested in this proposal will support a Coleoptera (beetle) collecting event, Mega Beetle Blitz 2005, that will be co-organized by V. M. Bayless and Coleoptera TWIG (taxonomic working group) leader C. E. Carlton. This two-week bio-blitz duration will allow a team of highly qualified researchers an opportunity to thoroughly document some of the unknown species of the GSMNP. A focus on light trapping and flight intercept trapping will fill gaps in our knowledge of the Coleoptera fauna. In order to encourage participation, $250 will be offered to seven participating scientists. Basic travel costs are requested for the PI as well as supplies for researchers, volunteers and students. The Blitz will be coordinated with educational and volunteer programs, and results will be posted on the "Smoky Beetle" Website (http://www.agctr.lsu.edu/arthropodmuseum/smokybeetles.htm).

The GSMNP is extremely rich in lichens, especially in lichens growing on tree bark and on rock overhangs. I will continue my previous work aiming at finding so many bark and rock lichens as possible that are new to science or at least new to the park. I will focus on sterile, crustose species. Good material from several localities is needed to make good descriptions of lichens that are new to science. It is necessary to carry out field work in as many habitats as possible in all parts of the park to learn about the variation and ecology of the species. The dust lichens (the genus Lepraria) have a diversity center in the park. They can easily be seen on bark and rock surfaces from trails throughout the park. Several of them have no name, i.e., they are not yet described.

Microorganisms from elk will be sampled in order to understand the symbionts within their digestive tracts. Bacteria and archaea play crucial roles in rumens by enzymatically degrading plant compounds (e.g., cellulose, lignins) and producing vitamins and metabolites that are directly used by the host. Without such microbial life, elk would not be able to digest the plants they depend upon for sustenance. Fecal pellets will be used to determine the microorganisms present in elk rumens. DNA extracts from the pellets will be subjected to PCR to amplify the many species’ ribosomal DNA. Species will be separated using a technique that generates “fingerprints” of the microbial communities within each host. Trends between the time of year (i.e., plants available for consumption) and between individual elk will be determined. Species will be identified and most will represent unique lineages to science, since no other studies have examined elk microflora to date.