Mountain Rain Forests in Southern Ecuador as a Hotspot of Biodiversity – Limited Knowledge and Diverging Patterns

Highly complex ecosystems such as the tropical mountain rain forest in southern Ecuador probably harbor tens of thousands of species that interact with each other. It is impossible to understand an ecosystem without knowing the composi­ tion of its community. Such knowledge cannot be achieved without the examina­ tion of all major groups of animals, fungi, plants, and bacteria. For example, insects such as leaf beetles, ants, or hymenopteran and dipteran parasitoids have a high impact on forest ecosystems (Moutino et al. 2005; Soler et aI. 2005), but have not been studied at the RBSF so far. The question of how many species there are on earth is still unresolved. Estimates range from four to 30 million species (e.g. Novotny et aI. 2002). Ultimately, only counting and naming species can answer this question. A hot debate about the methodological approaches, i.e. the usefulness and efficiency of 'traditional' taxonomy versus DNA barcoding approaches is still going on (e.g. Meyer and Paulay 2005; Will et al. 2005). Barcoding techniques provide useful sets of new characters far species descriptions and phylogenies, especially in cryptic species or taxa otherwise poor in morphological characters (e.g. Hajibabaei et al. 2006). However, species definition based on DNA sequence data can be problematic. For example, ribosomal genes can show intraspecific variation in the multinucleate Glomeromycota. The sequence types obtained from the vegetative stage can rarely be related precisely to either morphological or bio­ logical species (Sanders 2004). In our opinion, the only strategie way forward can reside on a synthesis of 'c1assic' and 'modern' approaches with regard to sampling campaigns, application of up-to-date information technology (Godfray 2005), and thorough taxonomie and systematic work. This might include in vitra cultivation, in the case of fungi and bacteria. Traditional descriptive disciplines such as taxonomy, systematics and natural history provide names, phylogenies, and life history data as a service for other fields of science and their applications. However, these disciplines have suffered a great loss of capacity in past decades (e.g. Breckle 2002; Gotelli 2004). Many species identifications from the RBSF are not the primary result of research efforts in