For most hikers or picnickers, flies are a minor nuisance dealt with
by a firm swat.
For Brian Wiegmann, however, they bring the kind of delight only a
dipterist can
feel. When a slender black fly with orange spots alighted on
Wiegmann's knee last month in Great Smoky Mountains NationalPark, a
fellow fly hunter knew right away they were looking at a
flower-pollinating species never seen before. By the end of the
Memorial Day weekend, Wiegmann and several colleagues had collected at
least five new species. "It was pretty exciting," saysWiegmann, an
entomologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
This was no casual fly safari: Wiegmann and gang were taking part in
the kickoff of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI).Led by the
National Park Service and a nonprofit called Discover Life in America,
the ambitious project, now in a 2-year pilot
phase to hash out methods, is inviting scientists to tally every
species that calls the park home. It's a tremendous
undertaking,considering that scientists so far have identified only
800 of an estimated 100,000 species (excluding bacteria and viruses)
in the 225,000-hectare park, which straddles the border of Tennessee
and North Carolina.
Besides being a taxonomist's dream, the project aims to shed light on
why some regions have a richer array of life-forms thanothers and how
quickly species are going extinct. "It would be nice to have a chunk
[of land] where we know everything that
occurs," says taxonomy group leader Don Wilson, a mammalogist at the
Smithsonian Institution. However, accruing suchknowledge carries a
hefty price tag: Adding 90,000-odd branches to the tree of life could
take up to 15 years and $100 million,
according to ATBI organizer John Pickering, an entomologist at the
University ofGeorgia, Athens. (Not everyone thinks the cost
will be that high.) "There's lots of excitement in the scientific
community, but not lots of money," says Mike Sharkey, an
insectsystematist at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and ATBI
participant. Sharkey and others admit they don't know if they can
raise that kind of money for a species census.
The original plan, conceived 6 years ago by University of Pennsylvania
ecologistDaniel Janzen, was to carry out an ATBI in aswath of
rainforest in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The idea resonated with
academics, thanks in part to enthusiasm sparked byINbio--a novel
institute, run by the Costa Rican government with support from the
pharmaceutical giant Merck, that prospects inthe rainforest for
candidate drugs. But this incarnation of the ATBI, expected to cost
$90 million, fell apart after Costa Ricanofficials opted for a limited
survey (Science, 9 May 1997, p. 893).
Bowed but not beaten, ATBI adherents revived the idea a couple of
years ago, settling on the Great Smokies park as the venuebecause it's
one of the most species-rich temperate areas in the world, and it's
much easier and cheaper for U.S. scientists to
reach than Central America. Also, in contrast to the cool reception
researchers encounter in most parks--where getting a permit tocollect
even a single species can be an uphill battle--Smokies officials
welcomed the opportunity to have waves of scientistsbearing down on
them. "We have a management team that thinks science is important,"
says park biologist Keith Langdon, anATBI organizer. The park, he
says, has pledged to open up to ATBI researchers a $3 million lab it
hopes to build in 2001.
Project scientists are still working out the mechanics of their
whole-earth survey. For instance, Langdon's staff has laid out
201-hectare plots to help scientists sample the park's various
habitats. The project has a Web site logging bugs, salamanders, and
other verified park denizens; it will eventually include data on each
species' range, behavior, and population
dynamics(www.discoverlife.org).
Impressive, maybe, but will the taxonomy community at large get fired
up over a species quest in Tennessee? "The Smokies is notas sexy a
place" as Costa Rica, admits Wilson, who isn't counting on seeing any
new charismatic species, like mammals or birds."From the standpoint of
the scientific community, there's maybe less hoorah." Nevertheless,
organizers do have a bird in hand:$150,000 this year (and perhaps
future years) from the Smoky Mountains Natural History Association, as
well as some matchingfunds. How many birds are in the bush is anyone's
guess. Organizers plan to submit proposals to the National Science
Foundation
and other agencies and nonprofit foundations starting later this year,
after they can make a more persuasive case based on datafrom this
summer's fieldwork. "I'd say there's a huge number of taxonomists out
there" who are interested, Pickering says. "We'vegot to convince them
we've got the organization and the money."