Biology Professor To Sleuth for Species

The course description for Biology 156, “Tropical Insect Systematics,” ends with an unusual note: “Includes a spring break fieldtrip to the Dominican Republic.”

Though the course isn’t offered this year, the course instructor, Professor of Biology Brian D. Farrell, will head for Hispaniola to begin cataloging species on the Caribbean island and searching for new ones. And starting next spring he plans to bring Harvard students with him.

Farrell said he hopes to document around 17,000 species in total, including 10,000 species of insects and 6,000 plants—as part of an ecological study he is conducting with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and the Smithsonian Museum.

Farrell said Hispaniola, the island composed of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, is a particularly interesting place for research because of its age and isolation.

He said the insects there—some of which are endemic to the island, which means they are native or confined to that area—can trace evolutionary connections between species in North and South America.

“In many ways this island is more interesting than, say, Hawaii and the Galapagos,” he said. “This island is much older—70 to 80 million years.”

Farrell said he hopes the study will lead to field guides of insects, distribution maps for the national park systems and an online encyclopedia of the species of Hispaniola—an area in which Harvard excels, according to Farrell.

“We’re really the world leaders of developing the interface of digital technology and collections,” he said.

While the museums will care for the physical specimens, Farrell and his graduate students will focus mainly on creating this encyclopedia, which Farrell said will be the first of its kind.

While they will also conduct field work—such as studying Farrell’s special interest, bark beetles—researchers from Carnegie and the Smithsonian will do the largest part of the data gathering.

“They’re doing the bulk collecting, hundreds of thousands of specimens,” he said. “I do targeted collecting.”

He said teaching his class on tropical insects last year helped to inspire his current plan to put together the encyclopedia.

“That’s the beginning,” he said. “The birth of this encyclopedia...was this field course. Undergraduates were the prime movers.”

“What I’m really excited about is bringing Harvard students down every other year to bring this to another level,” he said. “When we get a pulse of 20 undergrads down here, then we’ll really be able to progress quickly.”

But for those with a weak constitution, beware.

“The most remote regions have no roads, so we’ll be going on mules to carry the equipment, and probably us on foot,” Farrell said. “It’s probably as remote as it can be.”