Research-Curation Projects
1. The Ecology of Cave Arthropods
This project is being conducted by J Judson Wynne (Jut), who is both a researcher at the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center and a new PhD candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences.  Jut is establishing a reference collection of cave arthropods from National Park Service units throughout the Southwest, the Colorado Plateau and Belize.  The reference collection will be used for a number of ecological oriented projects that Jut will be initiating. http://www.caveexplorer.org/caveecology.php
2.  Impacts of Pinyon Mortality on Ground-Dwelling Arthropod Communities
We have two companion projects that will look at how high pinyon mortality impacts ground dwelling arthropod abundance and species richness.  Both projects will focus on microhabitat changes due to tree mortality as well as large scaled tree mortality areas.  We predict that architectural changes of standing or fallen dead pinyon trees in concert with the death of the root systems (e.g., nutrient release) will impact ground-dwelling arthropod communities in at least two ways.  First, they will be directly impacted from changes in microclimate and soil properties from fallen debris, creating microhabitat systems, and second they could be indirectly affected through changes in the understory vegetation (e.g., invasive forbs and grasses). 
3. Arthropod Response to Fire
This project seeks to understand the relationships that arthropods have with naturally occurring forest fires. Within the Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, we have established comparative sites of both burned and unburned regions of the forest. We expect definitive differences in community structure to become apparent and should begin to be able to characterize ecological succession during woodland regrowth. In addition to arthropod communities, other ecosystem features such as vegetation composition, effects of invasive species, and soil quality will be analyzed and understood in their relationship with arthropod communities. Ultimately these comparisons may also be used in comparing yearly variations with those caused by disturbances.
4. National Park Service Monitoring Protocol for Arthropods
We are developing a white paper on establishing a monitoring protocol for the Southern Colorado Plateau Inventory & Monitoring Program. The focus of the paper will be monitoring of ground-dwelling arthropod communities.  The protocol will form the basis for a long-term monitoring program that will be initiated in at least one NPS unit on the southern Colorado Plateau.
5. Colorado Plateau ATBI
The goal of this program is to promote and conduct ATBI (All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory) activities on the Colorado Plateau .  Our efforts are part of a national effort being conducted at a variety of parks to identify all taxa, icluding arthropods that are located within parks.  This information will then allow us to make predictions about how biodiversity may change in response to global change impacts.   There are currently seven participating universities and 16 of the 36 regional parks in the CP-ATBI program.. http://www.mpcer.nau.edu/atbi/ .
6.  Zion National Park Collection
We will be adding to the Zion National Park Service arthropod collection housed at CPMAB, cataloging and identifying additional specimens from the Zion NP collection.  Collectively, this is a wonderful augmentation of our representation of insects from the mid-western edge of the Colorado Plateau.  Furthermore, the additional funding will allow us to create an online database with digital images of Zion arthropods will be assembled. 
7.  Pollinator Networks
We are studying the direct and indirect impacts of Lehmans lovegrass (Eragrostis lehmanniana) on plants and pollinators in desert grasslands within the Fort Huachuca post.  The study is headed by the US Army Engineer Research Development Center’s Environmental Laboratory (EL) in partnership with the Colorado Plateau Museum of Arthropod Biodiversity at Northern Arizona University (NAU). The project will provide fundamental information on plant and pollinator community structure and pollination dynamics using network theory and approaches in response to Lehmann lovegrass.  This will greatly help us build our reference collection of pollinators.  The University of Arizona has kindly allowed us to utilize their collection to aid us in the identification of pollinating insects, especially Apoidea.
8. Canyon de Chelly National Monument ATBI
A regional collection of arthropods was created between 2005 and 2007 as part of the Colorado Plateau ATBI (CACH). At present over 5000 specimens of arthropods have been collected in conjunction with the National Park Service staff from Canyon De Chelly National Monument, volunteers from the Diné College, and staff/volunteers from CPMAB. Collections concentrated in three ecological communities: Pinyon/Juniper woodlands along the rim of the canyon, riparian woodlands within the canyon, and mixed conifer forest near the headwaters that flow into the canyon. The ATBI collection for CACH is presently being assembled into a online database with photos of all major specimens being made available. We have also provided training to Native American students and teachers from Dine College, collecting field samples and providing a reference collection.  An online database with digital images of arthropods collected from Canyon de Chelly will be assembled on the CPMAB web site.
9. Grand Canyon-Colorado River Riparian Arthropod Geodatabase
We will create a geodatabase from the arthropod data collected during the terrestrial riparian monitoring program conducted during 2001-2003 along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park.  The geodatabase will contain sample dates, locations, water zones, trap methods and number of individuals per taxa for all taxa.  We will then create one or more ArcMap projects and from those we will generate a number of distribution maps for all 1127 taxa and different combinations of taxa and functional groups.  The geodatabase will be hous ed at the GRAIL and accessible online at http://www.grail.nau.edu/ .
10. Death Valley National Monument Curation
In 2007 and 2008 invertebrate collections were made as part of the park's new All Taxa biologic Inventory (ATBI).  Many unidentified specimens remain in the park collection, especially among the many smaller taxa, such as centipedes and grasshoppers.  We will identify these specimens so that the park's ATBI effort may have these identifications soon, not only to better incorporate findings into adaptively managing ATBI activities, but also to provide the school groups participating in the ATBI some critical follow-up to their volunteer efforts.  This timeliness is essential in keeping enthusiasm and motivation high. Currently, there are approximately 200 unidentified entomology specimens in the park's collection that were obtained in the course of ATBI efforts this last year. 
11.  Ants of the Colorado Plateau and the Southwest
This project is an extension of Ernesto Rodriguez’s infatuation with ants.  Working with other museum members Ernesto will greatly increase the number of ant species found in the western United States.  He will concentrate on ant species collected from existing special collections and current projects as well as NPS units participating in the regional ATBI program.
12. Arthropods as Vertebrate Food
There is a clear need to centralize information regarding arthropods as food items.  This project will document prey items from migratory tropical birds.  Samples will be provided by Mark Sogge, USGS Colorado Plateau Research Station Leader.