Regional and local species richness of gall-inducing insects in two tropical rain forests in Mexico

Extract

Tropical rain forests have a high richness of plant species. However, the richness of insect species associated with the forest canopy is still poorly known. Estimates of arthropod fauna have followed several approaches from surveys on a single or few trees (Erwin 1988,1990) to regional sampling of specific insect guilds such as gall-inducing insects (Fernandes & Price 1988, Lara & Fernandes 1996, Price et al. 1998).