Presented at the 86th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - Pacific Division held at Southern Oregon University in Ashland Oregon June 12, 2005
Symposium Title: Resource Preservation and Research at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon: Studies of Lake and Terrestrial Ecosystems
A Contribution to Our Knowledge About the Arthropods of Crater Lake National Park
Ronald W. Lyons
Personal visits to a number of natural areas, including many National Parks, in recent years revealed that the information available to visitors about local arthropods was very limited or nonexistent in most cases. Experience at one National Park showed that some information did exist but it was not consolidated and hence not readily accessible. Subsequent work revealed that a significant portion of published information was not known at the Park level. The effort to consolidate this information was discussed in general terms in Lyons, Web Site for Local Arthropod Information (Proceedings of the Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute 2003 Invertebrates in Captivity Conference; pp. 140-143).
In this presentation, the status of an on-going project to consolidate the arthropod information for Crater Lake National Park is discussed. This project has two aspects. The first involves documenting archival material such as journal articles, theses, and other papers which refer to arthropod activities in the Park or use specimens collected there. It also involves documenting the specimens collected in the Park but held off-site in the Oregon State University Arthropod Collection (OSAC), probably the largest off-site repository of Crater Lake specimens. The second aspect involves the preparation of a Park-specific guide with pictures and information about a representative sample of arthropods for use by Park visitors and staff. The information already gathered is structured as a local web site on simple web pages and will be available for viewing.