Documenting biodiversity in Papua New Guinea is one of the core activities of the Center. We recognise that biological research is an important prerequisite for preserving and wisely exploiting the wealth of biodiversity in the country.
New Guinea is home to exceptionally high biological diversity, with many species restricted to this island. It is beyond dispute that one of the priorities of research in New Guinea is documenting this high biodiversity.
Our Center demonstrates that joint effort of parabiologists, students and researchers could be one strategy to quickly inventory the biodiversity in tropical countries, such as PNG, using local expertise. Our Center is particularly active in large-scale surveys of plant-insects food webs in the forests of Papua New Guinea while some of our studies also focus on vertebrates.
Current research projects:
- Effect of ants on the structure of plant-herbivore food webs in tropical forests
- Plant community structure in a lowland forest: a 50-ha permanent forest dynamics plot
- Alpha and beta diversity of butterflies, geometrid moths, leafhoppers, frogs and birds along a complete rainforest altitudinal gradient
- Large-scale patterns of insect herbivore diversity in New Guinea
- Plant-herbivore food webs in primary and secondary rainforests
- Communities of ants (Formicidae) in lowland rainforests of New Guinea
- Communities of leaf-chewing insects in lowland rainforests of New Guinea
- Host specificity of wood-boring beetles (Cerambycidae) in lowland rainforests
- Host specificity of bark beetles (Scolytidae) in lowland rainforests
- Host specificity of fruit-flies (Tephritidae) in lowland rainforests
- Host specificity of leaf-beetle larvae (Chrysomelidae) feeding on roots
- Host specificity of leaf-mining insects in lowland rainforests
- Host specificity of insects sucking on leaf mesophyll cells (Hemiptera, Typhlocybinae)
- Host specificity of pholem- and xylem-sucking insects (Hemiptera)
- Host specificity and species richness of parasitoids feeding on insect herbivores
- Ecology and evolution of figs and fig wasps in New Guinea
- Alien trees in New Guinea rainforests and their herbivores
- Species composition and host specificity of caterpillars (Lepidoptera) along an altitudinal gradient