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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund

@gdfcf.bsky.social
126 followers 74 following 25 posts

GDFCF is the nonprofit partner to the Área de Conservación Guanacaste; our aim is to ensure this large protected area survives in perpetuity.

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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Our latest newsletter is out! 🌿 Inside: 1.6 million ACG insects reshaping estimates of global insect diversity, new climate research, community science in Bahía Santa Elena, Dan & Winnie—and a few newly named species. Read the latest from ACG: mailchi.mp/847ec6fd5bde...
mailchi.mp
Greetings from the Rainy Season
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
🧪 🪲🐜🐛🦟🦗🐞🦋 How many insect species & why it matters. Have a listen to @dirch3.bsky.social speaking with #CBC radio about our recent @pnas.org paper about raising old insect diversity estimates! doi.org/10.1073/pnas... www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...
cbc.ca
© CBC/Radio-Canada 2026. All rights reserved.
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
🧪 🪲🐜🐛🦟🦗🐞🦋 How many insect species & why it matters. An interview with @jonathanmccrea.bsky.social on RTE Ireland’s #Futureproof about that very topic via our recent @pnas.org paper about old estimates that need to be raised! doi.org/10.1073/pnas... (@ 15 min) podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/f...

Collage of three images associated with the paper : top on is a strangler fig in ACG rainforest, bottom left is a Malaise trap in ACG cloud forest and bottom right is an ACG microgasteine wasp
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
What an extraordinary story. 💚🌳 @mongabay.com’s Rhett Ayers Butler beautifully captures Dan Janzen, Winnie Hallwachs, and the decades of people, science, and persistence behind the restoration and protection of Área de Conservación Guanacaste. A must-read: news.mongabay.com/2026/08/dani...
news.mongabay.com
Daniel Janzen and the long work of bringing back a forest
In northwestern Costa Rica, the forest did not return all at once. First the cattle were removed. Then the fires had to be stopped. Introduced grasses made the old ranchlands burn too easily. Fence li...
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
🧪 A piece in this week's @science.org "In Other Journals" section by Sacha Vignieri about our species number paper "So many more" doi.org/10.1126/scie... @gdfcf.bsky.social doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
text reads: Insects are the most diverse group of animals on Earth, with recent estimates of around 6 million species. Estimating this number, however, is challenging because new species are identified so regularly that taxonomists often differentiate them with DNA barcodes rather than names. Colwell et al. used this DNA barcoding approach, in conjunction with statistical richness analyses, to estimate the total number of species globally from intensive sampling within Costa Rica, including a hyperdiverse group of parasitoid wasps. They estimated that there are at least 14 to 20 million insect species on the planet, two to three times more than currently thought. Further, they note this is a lower bound: The top end of their prediction reaches 30 million.
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
New research estimates around 20 million insect species on Earth — doubling those facing extinction theconversation.com/new-research...
theconversation.com
New research estimates around 20 million insect species on Earth — doubling those facing extinction
When we lose insect species without even knowing they existed, we will never know where they lived, what they looked like, how they interacted with other species or the impact they had on ecosystems.
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
🦟🐛🐞New article out on the PNAS paper that is based on decades of work in Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica, and that reshaped our understanding of life on Earth. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🧪 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 All the data is available here: doi.org/10.5683/SP3/... @gdfcf.bsky.social @rpuschen.bsky.social 🧵 end.
Image from ACG forests at ~1000m on Volcan Cacao - home to incredible insect diversity
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 Thanks to all co-authors, in particular José A. Hernández Ugalde from CONAGEBio, & all associated with ACG & GDFCF – the hybrid association formed to aid with the development, protection, & sustainability of ACG. doi.org/10.1139/gen-... @gdfcf.bsky.social @rpuschen.bsky.social
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 Nearly 4 million records and 152 891 species. That’s a lot! (and there’s more to be found!) doi.org/10.1139/gen-... @gdfcf.bsky.social @rpuschen.bsky.social
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 Were there patterns in what groups we found? 🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰A LOT OF FLIES 🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰 (and also loads of Hymenoptera, Coleoptera and Hemiptera). doi.org/10.1139/gen-... @gdfcf.bsky.social @rpuschen.bsky.social
Figure S2. Frequency of BINs for most Orders and Families collected across in 28 localities from 2017 to 2023, using Malaise traps.Figure S2. Frequency of BINs for most Orders and Families collected across in 28 localities from 2017 to 2023, using Malaise traps.image of the parasitoid tachind fly Santarosamyia woodrum (female paratype) from Part of: Fleming AJ, Smith MA, Hallwachs W, Janzen D (2025) A new genus and a new species in the tribe Eryciini (Diptera, Tachinidae) from Area de Conservación Guanacaste in north-western Costa Rica. Biodiversity Data Journal 13: e161853. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.13.e161853
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 After nearly 4 million records, we found extremely high turnover. Most species were exclusive to a single region & each life zone harbors unique assemblages, strongly associated with temperature and precipitation doi.org/10.1139/gen-... @gdfcf.bsky.social @rpuschen.bsky.social
Figure S9. A comparison of betadiversity decay when calculated as Bray Curtis (A, C, E) dissimilarity where points are coloured by the difference in mean annual temperature (A), precipitation (C) or elevation (E) from the 28 Costa Rican locations. Irrespective of index, the sites that are farther apart geographically and by some combination of annual temperature, precipitation or elevation are the most dissimilar. Figure S6. Non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination (NMDS) based on the Bray–Curtis coefficient of community dissimilarity calculated from the 28 localities by 152 891 BIN incidence matrix of Costa Rica insects. Two of the significant vectors here (mean temperature, mean annual precipitation) were derived from the 30 arc-second (1km) resolution of future bioclimatic variables from the ACCESS-ESM1-5 climate model under the SSP5-8.5 emissions scenario for the 2021-2040 period in WorldClim version 2.1. Consensus tree of localities derived from 100 bootstrap replicates, using UPGMA based on Jaccard’s distance.,
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 Only 3.6% of species we recovered were linked to formal names and so we used DNA barcode derived ‘BINs’ as species proxies. doi.org/10.1139/gen-... @gdfcf.bsky.social @rpuschen.bsky.social
image of a staphylinid beetle with a staphylinid DNA barcode behind itimage of a micrograstrine wasp with a microgastrine wasp dna barcode behind it
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 Most samples emerged from Malaise traps in national biodiversity initiative, BioAlfa. We analysed these Malaise traps across Costa Rica sampled between 2017 and 2023. doi.org/10.1139/gen-... @gdfcf.bsky.social @rpuschen.bsky.social
 Janzen and Hallwachs 2019 article about bialfa, https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/ibol/article/download/5526/5454, Image of Malaise trap at 1300m on Volcan Cacao, ACGimages of malaise traps and forest at 1500m in cloud forest (top) and 8 m elevation in tropical dry forest (bottom)image of insects in Malaise trap head at 8m elevation in tropical dry forest.
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
🧪 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 We analysed 3.78 million DNA barcodes from 152,891 Costa Rican insect species. Our results reveal limited community overlap across ecosystems, suggesting unique species assemblages in each life zone. doi.org/10.1139/gen-... @gdfcf.bsky.social @rpuschen.bsky.social 🧵
collage of from top left going clockwise: microgastrine wasp with DNA barcode, Malaise trap at 1300 on Volcan Cacao, forest at 1500m on Volcan Cacao, three ACG volcanos, map of the predicted spatial distribution of insect diversity patterns across mainland Costa Rica. Each color represents one of the seven mainland distribution patterns delineated here. Central image of GDFCF associated people working on the paper. 
Collage of authors: Clockwise from top left: Jenny Phillips, Roberto Fernandez, Jose Ugalde, Alex Smith, Jose Fernandez Triana, Mike Sharkey, Dan Janzen, Winnie Hallwachs, Rob Puschendorf and Ronald Zuniga
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
🧪 Mountain insects are running out of room as the planet warms: www.earth.com/news/mountai... 🧪🌋🪲
earth.com
Mountain insects are running out of room as the planet warms
Tropical beetles reveals that many mountain insects are already nearing their heat limits, leaving them vulnerable to climate change.
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Tropical insects may be running out of room as temperatures rise | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
eurekalert.org
Tropical insects may be running out of room as temperatures rise
Significance: Empirical evaluations of thermal tolerance for tropical species are sparse, and this reduces our capacity to anticipate the impact of the climate crisis on the undescribed morass of wild...
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ The little things of ACG are teaching us much about the world. We enthusiastically thank ACG for protecting & preserving these species & spaces. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
photo of cloud forest at the top of Volcan Cacaophoto of Dan and Winnie and Alex at the Malaise trap at the top of Volcan Cacaophoto of Al and Alex at the top of Volcan Cacao gigapan of cloud forest at the top of Volcan Cacao
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ However, as predicted by Janzen’s Mountain Passes, most of these species do not move much; and eventually, there will be nowhere higher to go. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵
photo of Dan Janzen at the top of Volcan Cacaophoto of rain/cloud forest intergrade on Volcan Cacao
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ How to deal with the climate crisis? Refuge in the soil may provide temporary respite from rising temp. Larger spp that can move may move upslope and find respite in cooler temperatures. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵
a photo of an irridescent green ACG staphylinindHawkins plot_volcan_cacao_la_cima
Departures from the norm in the cloud forest at Volcan Cacao are shown here as vertical bars coloured by how high above, or below that norm each day was.  Temperatures in the cloud forest are increasing.  Image credit: Alex Smith
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ Tropical forest communities are vulnerable across elevation in different ways. This highlights the critical protective role that the ÁCG plays in preserving habitat these species and others like them. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵
A year of temperature across elevation
A year of daily maximum temperature values across the elevational gradient sampled here (hot dry forests at the bottom moving up slope through mid-elevation rain forest and into high elevation cloud forests).  Each day at each of eight locations is shown as a vertical bar with the colour of that bar illustrating the intensity of the daily maximum temperature.   Image credit: Alex Smith
a species of staphylinid from the genus Stenus from ACG
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ High-elev cloud forest spp r likely not capable of dealing with the coming temp. Low-elev dry forest spp, have higher heat tolerances, but r already exposed to temps that can exceed their thermal limits. @gdfcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵
photo of rain forest above the station on volcan cacao photo of dry forest above near Santa Rosaimage from the paper illustrating how the safety margin of the soil (difference between heat tolerance of species and the 215 averaged maximum soil temperature of the collection site) changes with elevation
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ Diverse tropical leaf litter-dwelling rove beetles in Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) Costa Rica (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), show how thermal tolerance can change with elevation. @gdfcf.bsky.social fcf.bsky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
image from paper illustrating the decline with elevation of environmental temperature and the CTmax.photo of an acg staphylinid with coloured text of a DNA barcode
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
🧪 🪲 🌋 🌡️ When are things too hot to handle? Our new paper on insect thermal tolerance across elevation in @pnas.org nas.org suggest perhaps not too far in the future. @gdfcf.bsky.social sky.social @alexandreloureiro.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧵
photo of dorsal view of 15 species of staphylinid from ACGphoto of an array of tubs containing ACG staphylinids with light in the backgroundphoto of strangler fig standing in cloud in ACGphoto of co-authors Smith and Loureiro in ACG
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
New research from Área de Conservación Guanacaste! Congratulations @natingui.bsky.social and @isabelvargas.bsky.social #womeninscience #woodthrush #cienciatica #bioave #costarica #birds
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Rachel L. Walsh @swamplily.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
New study shows there may be 2-3x as many insect species as previously estimated, owing significantly to the diversity of parasitoid wasps!
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
🧪 "Más de tres décadas de investigación en el ACG transforman la estimación mundial" "More than three decades of research at the ACG are transforming global estimates." www.acguanacaste.ac.cr/noticias/not...
acguanacaste.ac.cr
Más de tres décadas de investigación en el ACG transforman la estimación mundial
Más de tres décadas de investigación en el ACG transforman la estimación mundial de especies de insectos Este trabajo demuestra que la conservación y la investigación científica de largo plazo generan...
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
This isn't just a paper about insects. It's a demonstration of what decades of biodiversity inventory, conservation, and scientific collaboration can achieve. Congratulations to Dan & Winnie, the parataxonomists, and all the authors on this remarkable PNAS publication. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
🧪 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 "Study finds number of insect species on Earth is more than double previous estimates" 🎁link to a wonderful article by @ivansemeniuk.bsky.social in the @theglobeandmail.com about our #OA PNAS paper doi.org/10.1073/pnas.... @gdfcf.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/c231c7b...
theglobeandmail.com
Study finds number of insect species on Earth is more than double previous estimates
Research shows there could be at least 20 million different insect species
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 In many ways, the deeper story is that patient, long-term inventory work in one very special place, involving the people of that place, has generated insights about biodiversity at a global scale. @gdfcf.bsky.social doi.org/10.1073/pnas...  grateful to have been part of the team🧵
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 In our paper, we (an international team of authors) root our answer in the globally unique biodiversity hotspot, (and UNESCO World Heritage Site), in northwestern Costa Rica, the Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). @gdfcf.bsky.social
Authors clockwise from top left: Laura Melissa Guzman, Robert K. Colwell, Michael J. Sharkey and Anne Chao (with Alan Turing).  R.K.C., L.M.G, and M.J.S contributed equally to this work and the statistical underpinnings were critically dependent on Anne Chao's estimations. photo of Winnie Hallwachs, Alex Smith and Dan Janzen on the top of Volcan Cacao in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (2008).
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
🧪🧵 🪰 🐜🪲🐞🦗🐛🦋🪳🦟 How many species of insect are there?  A seemingly simple question, but one that has been 'bugging' scientists for years.  Our work out today suggests that there are millions more than we had previously expected.  doi.org/10.1073/pnas... @gdfcf.bsky.social
This photo was taken in Area de Conservacion GuanacasteThis microgastrine wasp was named by co-author Jose Fernandez-Triana in honour of Costa Rican parataxonomist Roberto Espinoza in recognition of his contribution to understanding the plant biology of ACG.  The species is Snellenius robertoespinozai.  The image is Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) so can reused provided the original author (Jose Fernandez-Triana) and the source are properly cited.  The source is: Fernandez-Triana JL, Whitfield JB, Smith MA, Kula RR, Hallwachs W, Janzen DH (2015) Revision of the genera Microplitis and Snellenius (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, Costa Rica, with a key to all species previously described from Mesoamerica. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 62(2): 137-201. https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.62.5276image of a Malaise trap in Area de Conservacion Guanacaste
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ZooKeys @zookeys.pensoft.net · 27/04/2026
A new species of scale-covered marine worm, Sthenelais onca, has been documented along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It is characterised by a jaguar-like color pattern! Read more: zookeys.pensoft.net/article/1764...
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
NEW SPECIES ALERT! Researchers with the BioMar project have discovered a new species of marine worm in Área de Conservación Guanacaste. #newspecies #biodiversity #costarica #science #marineworm #marinebiodiversity Read more here: zookeys.pensoft.net/art.../17644...
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Our latest newsletter is out today. Please read and share. Thank you! mailchi.mp/eee818ebe3bb...
mailchi.mp
Greetings from the Dry Season
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Inspired by this @karaman.is #TidyTuesday example to use his format to plot elevation rather than depth! Here are three years of air temperature data across 1500 m of elevation in #ACG #CostaRica from sea level (outer band) to cloud forest (centre) 🙏 for the example!! @gdfcf.bsky.social
Concentric circles representing mean temperature at elevations along Volcan cacao in a CG in Costa Rica. For the years 2023 to 2025.  Inspired by the beautiful example in the quoted post !
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
🌿✨ A new species for science! Meet Cryptocarya costaricana, a newly described tree in the family Lauraceae. 🇨🇷 Co-authored by botanist Nelson Zamora, who works closely with the parataxonomists on the ACG plant bioinventory. www.scilit.com/publications...
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Dr Ross Barnett @deepfrieddna.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘I love midges because I know what their hearts look like’: is the passion for taxonomy in danger of dying out?
Insect taxonomist Art Borkent has described and named more than 300 species of midges but fears his field of science is dying out, despite millions of insects, fungi and other organisms waiting to be ...
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
“What I see when I'm walking through the forest, I just do not feel that the birds are having any kind of food,” Dan Janzen says. “No insects.” Birds are vanishing from tropical forests. Is another ‘silent spring’ coming? | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Birds are vanishing from tropical forests. Is another ‘silent spring’ coming?
As mysterious bird declines crop up in the Amazon and beyond, scientists suspect climate change may be to blame
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Here’s a view of a deceased Costa Rican nightjar slowly being turned into Costa Rican ants in #ACG @gdfcf.bsky.social youtube.com/shorts/kqwsY...
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
🧪🪰🧪 More #ACG diversity described! Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. Fleming AJ, Smith MA, Hallwachs W, Janzen D (2025) A new genus and a new species in the tribe Eryciini ( #Diptera , #Tachinidae ) from Area de Conservación Guanacaste. @bdj.pensoft.net doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.... @gdfcf.bsky.social
Lateral view of the fly Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. habitus images, male, holotype n. DHJPAR0019111 from  Figure 5.lateral view of the head and eye of 
Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. habitus images, male, holotype n. DHJPAR0019111 from Figure 5.infographic of new genus and species of ACG parasitic fly, Santarosamyia woodorum.  Images within the infographic show the various orientations of the type and paratype individuals for the new species, phylogenies of how this taxon relates to other species within the same subfamily and an image of the DNA barcode variation present within the new species other morphologically similar species. screen grab of the etymology and ecology of the new species

Etymology
Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. is named in honour of Dr. D. Monty Wood (1933–2020) and Grace Wood for their many years of dedication to the study of Diptera and, in particular, the family Tachinidae of ACG. Their legacy lives in Monty's invaluable contributions to science and the countless people he educated and collaborated with. Interim species-specific names for Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov., included in previously circulating databases and publications, are tachinidWood12 Wood01 and Nilea Wood01.

Distribution
Costa Rica, ACG, Guanacaste Province, 20–326 m elevation.

Ecology
Santarosamyia woodorum sp. nov. has been reared twelve times from at least two species of Lepidoptera in the family Crambidae: Omiodes cuniculalis Guenée, 1854 (n = 3), Eulepte Janzen06 (n = 1) and Eulepte concordalis Hübner, 1825 (n = 7) and one species in the family Pyralidae: Chloropaschia granitalis (C. Felder, R. Felder & Rogenhofer, 1875) (n = 1) in dry fo
rest, at elevations ranging from 20–326 m.
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
🍃Our End of Year newsletter is just out today! Thank you to all of our supporters for helping us protect one of the most remarkable places on the planet: Área de Conservación Guanacaste. Happy Holidays! mailchi.mp/040b71d05c06...
mailchi.mp
Season's Greetings from GDFCF!
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Natalie V. Sánchez @natingui.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Successful Master's thesis defense of my student Isabel Vargas at the University of Costa Rica. She studied environmental and forest structure factors affecting Wood Thrush occupancy in Northern Costa Rica Project funded by @gdfcf.bsky.social
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Catherine Hulshof @hulshof.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
"After 55 years, the world’s most ambitious caterpillar inventory will come to a close. This monumental project in ACG has reared 870,000 caterpillars, of 8,000 species of butterflies and moths, and 18,000 species of wasp parasites—all documented by a team that grew to 30 local parataxonomists."
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Happy to share our latest newsletter! The latest GDFCF and Area de Conservación Guanacaste news is here: mailchi.mp/54601d57a15d...
mailchi.mp
Greetings from the Late Rainy Season
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
🧪 Very honored/excited to take part in this paper analysing & releasing 🐛 caterpillar rearing info from #ACG #CostaRica collected by #DanJanzen and #WinnieHallwachs and the #parataxonomists of @gdfcf.bsky.social doi.org/10.3389/fevo... Figures from data available at doi.org/10.5683/SP3/...
Figure of the decline of caterpillars collected in ACG over time since the standardisation of the paratxonomist workforce in 2005 (black line).  The red line tracks the proportion of the collected caterpillars that were parasitised - also declining. 

Lepidopteran abundance in ACG is declining (Janzen and Hallwachs 2021). While the trajectory of species within individual families may differ in the specifics from the overall trend (Figure X, Janzen and Hallwachs 2021) it is clear that in most cases, once the parataxonomist workforce stablised in ~2005 (that is – the individuals in the forests of ACG collecting caterpillars and leaves), there has been a marked decline collections of lepidoptera and their fly and wasp parasitoids.  Over this same time-period, the seasonal rains in the dry forest and low-elevation rain forest have become more erratic and the temperatures of air and soil are creeping upwards in all forest ecosystems – especially the high elevation rain forest and cloud forest (Janzen and Hallwachs 2021, Smith 2023). Thus, although the evident declines documented here may not solely due to climate change – the rapidity and force of the abiotic changes to these forests are involved in these declines.  Some taxa may be capable of moving upslope or towards the wetter forests of the Caribbean (Warne et al 2020), but many will, or can, not.  These observations parallel other observations of reductions in the diversity and abundance of caterpillars and their parasitoids within a protected area that are at least partially due to changing climate (Salcido et al 2020).

Bipartite figure of relationships between Erebidae caterpillars and their host plants in ACG.  The bipartite network of Erebidae species and host plants had a high network-wide estimate of specialisation (H2' = 0.894  Blüthgen et al., 2006) where values close to 0 indicate extreme generalization and those closer to 1 indicate specialization (Blüthgen et al., 2006).  Specialisation can be visualized in Figure y by the broad blue links that connect some of the most common species of caterpillar to their host plant.  For example, two species of Phaeoblemma (P. apicata and P. dares) were found only on two species of the Fabaceae, Senna (S. obtusifolia and S. papillosa).  Smaller links flow out of these Senna to indicate that these species have also been, much more infrequently, food for 17 other species of Erebidae in this matrix.  In another example, two Dysschema species (D. jansonis and D. leucophaea) both consume the Asteraceae Lepidaploa tortuosa – but this host plant has been found associated with 32 other species in the reduced matrix.
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
🧪 🪰 Happy to see this large data release and analysis of decades of #tachinidae collected by #DanJanzen, #WinnieHallwachs and the #parataxonomists of #ACG @gdfcf.bsky.social in #CostaRica. So much diversity! Paper here: doi.org/10.3390/d170... Data here: doi.org/10.5683/SP3/... 🪰 🧪
Figure 1. Four representative tachinid species from ACG. (A) Patelloa ‘xanthuraDHJ01’ voucher DHJPAR0034758; (B) Chorotegamyia sp.; (C) Spathidexia atripalpus; (D) Phosocephala alexanderi female voucher DHJPAR0048468. Photo credits - AJ Fleming CNC
bipartite diagram showing the host-specificity of ACG tachinids in the genus Belvosia.  Species in red were formerly known as one species that is now known to be three by host-use and genetics.  Where formalised names exist, they are largely honoring ACG paraxonomists. Venn diagram of the overlap between the diversity of ACG tachinids known from rearing larval lepidoptera versus those that are collected in Malaise traps.  Only 18.5% overlap. Evident decline in the abundance of tachinid parasaitoids (here counts/year for the two most abundant subfamilies) in ACG after the stabalisation of the parataxonomist collection workforce in ~2005
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Fascinating new research on spectral #bats conducted in Área de Conservación Guanacaste #hugs #murcielago #batconservation #science #costarica @plosone.org These Bats Like to Give Hugs and Play With Bugs www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/s...
nytimes.com
These Bats Like to Give Hugs and Play With Bugs
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Dan Mennill @dmennill.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
How do Rufous-and-white Wrens respond when this 3D-printed owl is presented near versus far from their nest? Find out in Dr. Natalie Sanchez' talk "Singing in the face of danger" today at 16:00 in Grand Ballroom A at #AOS2025. 🦉🇨🇷🎶 @natingui.bsky.social @gdfcf.bsky.social @lincolnsavi.bsky.social
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Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund @gdfcf.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
New paper out in Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution on #caterpillar diet in Área de Conservación Guanacaste. Authors include GDFCF's taxonomists in Costa Rica, Dan Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs, @alexsmithants.bsky.social, and Scott Miller. #science #Lepidoptera www.frontiersin.org/journals/eco...
frontiersin.org
Frontiers | Caterpillar diet breadth in Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), a large and diverse Neotropical wildland in northwestern Costa Rica: toxins, silica, aluminium and sclerophylly
Caterpillar-food plant records collected over approximately 38 years in the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica are described an...
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