Diversity of Curculionoidea in Humid Rain Forest Canopies of Borneo: A Taxonomic Blank Spot

Abstract

From 1992 to 2009, 334 trees were sampled by insecticidal knockdown on Borneo, Malaysia. Here, we describe the taxonomic composition of the 9671 specimens and 1589 species Curculionoidea collected (with additional notes on Cerambycidae). We found a largely unknown fauna with an assumed proportion of over 80% of species new to science, including all 33 Apionidae and 26 Ceutorhynchinae species. Specialists could usually identify only a few specimens leaving the remaining beetles for further investigation. The samples contain numerous genera, two tribes (Egriini, Viticiini), one subfamily (Mesoptiliinae) and one family (Belidae) new to Borneo and several genera not recorded west of the Wallace line before. These data show how little is known about canopy diversity. The lack of taxonomic knowledge implies a respective lack of autecological knowledge and is alarming. Some taxa differed conspicuously between primary and disturbed forests. In contrast to common literature, our results let us conclude that current efforts to narrow down the extent of tropical diversity and its ecological importance must consider the enormous species diversity of the canopy.