Entomological Survey of Rio Bravo Conservation and Management
Area, Belize Peter Kovarik, John Shuey, and Chris Carlton During
the mid-late 1990's, lepidopterist John Shuey became interested
in testing the widely touted concept that insect communities are
useful in evaluating impacts to ecological integrity in tropical
forest communities. At that time the literature had been
advocating insects, especially butterflies, as appropriate
indicators for assessing the impacts of specific management
activities on tropical forests. People were already using
insects as indicators, despite the fact that this simple premise
had yet to be tested. John enlisted coleopterist Peter Kovarik
as a partner in this study. The two decided that in addition to
butterflies, scarabaeine scarabs and hister beetles would become
part of the study. The taxa that were selected were chosen in
part because of their susceptibility to bait and or passive
trapping techniques. In fact the beauty of this study was that
we envisioned relatively li