Abstract
This study describes the results and collection practices for obtaining arthropod samples to be studied as potential sources of new medicines in a bioprospecting effort. From 1994 to 1998, 1800 arthropod samples of 6-10 g were collected in 21 sites of the Area de Conservaci6n Guancaste (A.C.G) in Northwestern Costa Rica. The samples corresponded to 642 species distributed in 21 orders and 95 families. Most of the collections were obtained in the rainy season and in the tropical rainforest and dry forest of the ACG. Samples were obtained from a diversity of arthropod orders: 49.72% of the samples collected corresponded to Lepidoptera, 15.75% to Coleoptera, 13.33% to Hymenoptera, 11.43% to Orthoptera, 6.75% to Hemiptera, 3.20% to Homoptera and 7.89% to other groups. Different life stages per arthropod species were obtained in most samples, 54.26% of them were adults, 19.90% corresponded to larvae, 6.46% to pupae, 6.12% to pre-pupae, 2.07% to nymphs and 3.74% to other stages. Other materials associated to insects like frass represented 11.20% of the samples collected. Several collecting methods were explored, based on the possibility of accessing the necessary amount of material causing the less impact. Most of the samples were obtained by manual collection (44.38%),. followed by insects breeding (25.73%), light traps (18.80%), different types of nets (10.52%) and other methods (0.16%). In general, collecting methods and practices excluded the use of solvents, mixing different species or life stages in the same bag, which might have introduced undesirable effects in the screening systems for new compounds. Based on the possibility of finding new chemicals in similar samples associated to one arthropod species, the collecting strategy included the generation of several samples from same species, separated according to differences in life stages, collecting sites, ecosystems. seasons, feeding materials or behavioral aspects. This strategy allowed the generation a larger number of samples submitted to bioassays in different areas of pharmaceutical research.
Highlights
Los avances de la biotecnología, la robótica, la informática y la biología molecular ofrecen nuevas oportunidades para la bioprospección que pueden adicionalmente estar congruentes con los lineamientos de la Convención de Biodiversidad (Ten Kate 2002)
This study describes the results and collection practices for obtaining arthropod samples to be studied as potential sources of new medicines in a bioprospecting effort
From 1994 to 1998, 1800 arthropod samples of 6-10 g were collected in 21 sites of the Área de Conservación Guancaste (A.C.G) in Northwestern Costa Rica
Summary
La recolecta de muestras de artrópodos se realizó entre 1994 y 1998 (hasta mayo), durante todos los meses del año, en el Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), ubicada en el noroeste de Costa Rica (http://www.acguanacaste.ac.cr). Se consideró una muestra de artrópodos como un grupo de individuos de la misma especie, estadio y sexo, que provenía de la misma localidad y cuyo peso fresco mínimo estaba entre 6 y 10 g. La muestra podía ser de una ecoespecie, que es un grupo de individuos de la misma especie y estadio de vida (adulto o inmaduro), o sexo, alimentándose de alguna otra de las plantas hospederas, o recolectados en otro sitio ecológicamente diferente. Grupos de artrópodos adultos de la misma especie recolectados en localidades diferentes se consideraron como muestras distintas cuando los sitios presentaban diferencias altitudinales, climáticas, faunísticas y florísticas. Uno de los métodos de crianza utilizados, consistió en la localización de grupos de larvas en el campo, que fueron cubiertos con una malla, para evitar la depredación por pájaros. Cada grupo se revisó periódicamente para obtener muestras de diferentes estadios
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