The purpose of the poster is to raise awareness of tropical aquatic biodiversity and the importance of riverine conservation and watershed management. The poster depicts stream biota at three locations on the Caribbean slope of Costa Rica. The first panel illustrates a headwater stream in Braulio Carrillo National Park. The middle panel illustrates a lowland stream draining La Selva Biological Station and the last panel depicts the coastal estuary and mouth of the river as it enters the Caribbean. The Braulio Carrillo National Park-La Selva land corridor represents the last intact gradient of primary forest spanning elevations near sea level to ~3,000 meters left on the entire Caribbean slope of Central America. University of Georgia professor, Dr. Catherine Pringle [who has been studying the streams of La Selva Biological Station and adjacent areas since the early 1980ís (http://cro.ots.ac.cr/cm/projects/streams/)], was inspired to initiate this poster after seeing a similar poster that depicted aquatic life along a temperate stream continuum in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Dr. Pringle commissioned talented artist, Jessica Magnarella, to illustrate the poster. Support for design and production came from the National Science Foundation grant DEB-95-28434 to C. M. Pringle and F. J. Triska, the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), and the University of Georgia. Proceeds from poster sales support OTSís La Selva Biological Station including environmental outreach activities. Ecology graduate students at UGA, Alonso Ramírez (aramirez@uga.edu) and James March (march@ecology.uga.edu) also worked closely with the artist. The poster reflects the research interests of these two young scientists: Ramírezís research interests are focused on the ecology and systematics of aquatic insects. He is a widely recognized expert on tropical dragonflies and damselflies (which are illustrated in the poster). His dissertation research focuses on the imortance of aquatic insects in ecosystem-level processes such as nutrient cycling and leaf decomposition in lowland tropical streams of La Selva Biological Station. He has also investigated the distribution of fishes, insects, and shrimps along the La Selva-Braulio Carrillo land corridor. Marchís dissertation focuses on the ecological role of shrimps in tropical streams. Shrimps travel the entire length of streams at certain periods in their life cycle, creating a critical linkage between stream headwaters and estuaries. Marchís studies are the first to quantify the magnitude and timing of migratory drift of larval freshwater shrimps to the estuary and their return upstream as juveniles (as depicted in the poster). His studies have been used by aquatic resource managers to mitigate negative environmental effects of dams and water abstraction.
About the Artist: Jessica Magnarella has worked as a freelance
illustrator and designer with the Institute of Ecology at UGA on several
projects. While the computer is the medium for most of her current work,
these pieces were done in acrylic and her background is in fine arts. She
can be contacted through e-mail: jmagnarella@yahoo.com
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