Plans are coming together for international fieldwork and teaching in Costa Rica this June. A grant from the University of Kansas (KU) and University of Costa Rica (UCR) is supporting one year of research on the arthropod community structure of Zingiberales plants in Costa Rica. My co-PIs are Drs. Paul Hanson and Mauricio Fernandez, UCR-Biology. Zingiberales are spectacular plants, with colorful bracts and large leaves; banana and ginger are common crops. Our team will examine the communities of arthropods that assemble in their phytotelmata—watery pools that form in the bracts and leaf rolls. I have been looking at these communities in Peru and the new grant will provide a Central American site for comparative study.
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