PROJECT HISTORY
An initial baseline study of the macro-invertebrate cave fauna at Kartchner Caverns State Park was performed by Dr. W. Calvin Welbourn under contract to Arizona Conservation Projects, Inc. between 1989 and 1991. The results of the initial study were subsequently published in the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies (Welbourn 1999). This first look at the macro-invertebrates in the cave was one of several resource analyses conducted prior to development of Kartchner Caverns as an Arizona State Park. The initial macro-invertebrate study included 164 in-cave hours of observation and sampling during 36 visits to the cave.
The Kartchner Caverns Macro-invertebrate Project evolved from an initial inquiry to Arizona State Parks in late 2008 by Dr. Luis Espinasa of Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York. Dr. Espinasa is an authority on a group of silverfish-like insects, the Nicoletiidae (Order: Zygentoma). Only two populations of these animals are currently known to occur in Arizona, both as endemic cave populations, one of which is resident in Kartchner Caverns. Dr. Espinasa contacted Dr. Robert Casavant, Research and Science Manager for Arizona State Parks, requesting permission to study the Kartchner Caverns population. Dr. Casavant asked Dr. Espinasa if he would consider conducting a complete review of the macro-invertebrates of the cave and provide a status update to the original study conducted 20 years earlier. Since this was beyond the scope of Dr. Espinasa’s original plan, he contacted Robert Pape, a local biospeleologist, who had been working on cave invertebrates in the southwestern U.S. for many years. Together, the two biologists assembled a proposal for a two-year program to augment the original study. The proposal was accepted by ASP on September 10, 2009, and studies in the cave commenced shortly thereafter on September 28. Barry M. OConnor (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) has been with the project since its inception, and assumed the role of co-principal investigator within the first year of studies. Findings of the study were published in 2014 (Pape and OConnor, 2014).
The Kartchner Caverns Macro-invertebrate Project evolved from an initial inquiry to Arizona State Parks in late 2008 by Dr. Luis Espinasa of Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York. Dr. Espinasa is an authority on a group of silverfish-like insects, the Nicoletiidae (Order: Zygentoma). Only two populations of these animals are currently known to occur in Arizona, both as endemic cave populations, one of which is resident in Kartchner Caverns. Dr. Espinasa contacted Dr. Robert Casavant, Research and Science Manager for Arizona State Parks, requesting permission to study the Kartchner Caverns population. Dr. Casavant asked Dr. Espinasa if he would consider conducting a complete review of the macro-invertebrates of the cave and provide a status update to the original study conducted 20 years earlier. Since this was beyond the scope of Dr. Espinasa’s original plan, he contacted Robert Pape, a local biospeleologist, who had been working on cave invertebrates in the southwestern U.S. for many years. Together, the two biologists assembled a proposal for a two-year program to augment the original study. The proposal was accepted by ASP on September 10, 2009, and studies in the cave commenced shortly thereafter on September 28. Barry M. OConnor (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) has been with the project since its inception, and assumed the role of co-principal investigator within the first year of studies. Findings of the study were published in 2014 (Pape and OConnor, 2014).
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