ASEF 4-2009.indb - Laboratoire de Zoologie

Type Specimens at the QCAZ Museum
biodiversity patterns in Ecuador.
Geographic clustering of type localities is a strong
warning about the completeness of the Museum
collection. It also reduces its usefulness as a source of
information on the invertebrates in under-sampled
areas of the country (Soberón et al. 2000). Perhaps most
dangerous for conservation planning, type localities
tended to be close to easily accessed areas. Th is may
devalue the apparent value of more remote areas for
conservation when actually they have simply not been
adequately sampled. It is unclear what the consequences
are of these biases in the collection. Clearly, at the
present, the collection does not adequately represent
Ecuador’s biodiversity and provide baseline data for
eff ective conservation planning (Soberón et al. 2000,
Reddy & Dávalos 2003). We hope that future collection
eff orts address this problem, targeting collection sites
located toward southern and less accessible regions of
the country. We also suggest that collection activity
should move toward more pristine areas, which may
consequently provide better chances of collecting rare
or new biological material. Th ese collections should
begin to address patterns of speciation of various groups
in Ecuador. Collection activity should also be planned
to examine potential barriers to gene fl ow leading to
speciation such as altitude, phytogeographic regions,
biogeographic regions and major physiographic
features of the landscape. We argue that in doing
so, researchers may increase both the amount and
quality of invertebrate material in museum, and the
signifi cance of their own work.
Th e Merriam Webster dictionary defi nes
conservation as “planned management of a natural
resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or
neglect”. Priority setting is an elemental step towards
biological conservation (Shi et al. 2002). However, it is
a complex task to set priorities for conservation and to
put in place the mechanisms for eff ective conservation
practice in small countries such as Ecuador. Diffi culties
arise from diff erent sources. First, the role and
leadership of the government in priority setting and
enforcement of laws and programs for conservation is
not clear. Th e recent constitution of Ecuador provides
for rights of the environment, however, the mechanism
Figure 7
Number of type-localities (fi lled bars) and random localities (empty bars) in relation to the average trip-time (N=165) it takes to arrive to such localities.
Th e average trip time is a measure of the physical access capacity of mobility from a given point to another (trip average hours), determined by logistic and
infrastructure facilities of both (UNEP-WCMC 2005).
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