With the funds provided by the James Smithson Society Grant, our dipterists will conduct a pilot study on the dissemination and repatriation of specimen-based natural history information. Costa Rica was selected as the target to aid their national effort towards the sustainable use and conservation of wild biodiversity. The Diptera Unit, through the work of Jennifer E. Fairman under the direction of Drs. Mathis and Thompson , will provide a species inventory of the Smithsonian collections of Diptera, with an indication of those from Costa Rica. These inventories will be documented by images of typical specimens.
Biodiversity holds the promise of sustainable development for the world.
We acknowledge the James Smithson Society for supporting our efforts to increase our knowledge of biodiversity and the sharing of that knowledge among nations. Terrestrial arthropods provide the broadest and finest-scale description of the biosphere as there are more species and individuals with longer histories and greater variation. Thus for entomology, our challenge is to manage the data associated with our specimens efficiently and effectively to increase knowledge and to disseminate the derived information. Using flies, one of the major groups of arthropods in size and importance to man, we will address this challenge. The award granted by the James Smithson Society will help us meet the challenge.