Harvard students collected insects in the Dominican Republic over spring break as part of a unique project created by Biology Professor Brian Farrell that combined fieldwork, identification, and creation of a digital insect database for the island nation¹s national insect collection. Photo courtesy of Brian Farrell |
Harvard students build Dominican insect databaseClass combines high technology, fieldwork to jump start national collectionApril 18, 2002Over spring break, a group of Harvard students led by biology Professor Brian Farrell collected specimens representing 500 insect species, including perhaps 200 new ones, and helped establish an insect database for the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santo Domingo. The trip was a collaboration between several organizations and many individuals, Farrell said. His Dominican colleagues helped teach the students about the local insect life, and the students and the staff of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, in turn, explained and helped set up digital databases that can be used for the Museo's entire 55,000-specimen collection and that can expanded to accommodate future collections. Farrell said that within five years, the Dominican Republic will likely be the only nation with its entire insect fauna, complete with maps and images, available online. The trip was sponsored by the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology, the Fundacion Ecologica Punta Cana, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. |
