The site selected for the virus
inventory is the Area Conservacion
de Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica. The reasons for this
selection are numerous, including geography, biological attributes, history,
and local intellectual and physical infrastructure. As a nation, Costa Rica
has a distinguished record of ecological conservation awareness and action.
With nearly 25% of its geographic area conserved, it leads the world in
efforts to balance environmental ethics with societal development. Due to
its diverse geography and tropical latitude Costa Rican ecosystems have
a high level of biodiversity, such that 5% of all species known in the world
are found within its borders. The ACG is estimated to contain 230,000 species,
comprising 65% of all species in Costa Rica. Thus, within the 120,000 hectares
of the ACG, approximately 2.6% of the world's species can be surveyed. The
area includes three major terrestrial ecosystems; dry tropical forest, cloud
forest, and rain forest. These have been studied and resolved into 22 large
scale habitat types, with 20-30 additional microhabitats.
Of equal importance to the biological diversity of the
area is the knowledge base and infrastructure associated with it. The ACG
is one of eleven areas that comprise the National System of Conservation
Areas (SINAC) within the Ministry of Environment and Energy in the Costa
Rican government. These conservation areas are the sites of an ongoing inventory
of the nation's biodiversity coordinated by SINAC and the National Institute
of Biodiversity (INBio). The ACG is the most advanced of the areas with
regard to the current status of its inventory, such that there are well
developed databases of information on many plants, vertebrates, and insects
in the area. There is also an active research program at the area in which
more than 50 projects are carried out annually by national and international
researchers in diverse disciplines of biology. The ACG has 120 permanent
staff members including both academically trained experts and parataxonomists,
specializing in extensive local knowledge of selected taxa. Collaboration
between virologists and local and international macrobiologists with ongoing
research projects at the area is a cornerstone of the virus inventory project
that we propose.
The physical facilities of the ACG include five biological stations
that facilitate access to each of the habitat types in the three major ecosystems
in the area. The headquarters at the Santa Rosa Tropical Dry Forest Research
Center includes, in addition to the dormitory and dining facilities found
at all stations, laboratory and conference buildings, with advanced mapping
information and computer capability. This physical support and knowledge
base, along with the inherent biological attributes of the ACG, make it
a unique and optimal location for a large-scale, ecosystem-based virus inventory.
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Last modified July 14, 1997
