The proposed project will begin to answer the critical question, "Where is the biodiversity of nematodes in the tropics?" It is hypothesized that most of the nematode diversity will be associated in intricate relationships with arboreal habitats and invertebrates found in tropical rain forests. This project will collect nematode assemblages at four vertical positions (soil, litter, subcanopy, arboreal habitats) in the early wet season at each of three altitudes (500, 1000 and 2000 m). Sites will be chosen based on their complementation of other existing surveys in Costa Rica .

Dr. Patricia Stock, spstock@ag.arizona.edu