Project Description

The Arizona Sky Island Arthropod Project (ASAP) is a collaborative multi-disciplinary research program at the University of Arizona that combines systematics, biogeography, ecology, and population genetics to study origins and patterns of arthropod diversity among mountain ranges andalong elevation gradients in the Madrean Sky Island Region
. Arthropods represent taxonomically and ecologically diverse organisms that drive key ecosystem processes in this mountain archipelago. Using data from museum specimens and specimens we obtain during long-term collecting and monitoring programs, ASAP will document arthropod species across Arizona’s Sky Islands to address a number of fundamental questions about arthropods of this region. Baseline data will be used to determine climatic boundaries for target species, which will then be integrated with climatological models to predict future changes in arthropod communities and distributions in the wake of rapid climate change. ASAP also makes use of the natural laboratory provided by the Sky Islands to investigate ecological and genetic factors that influence diversification and patterns of community assembly.

Read more–

Moore et al. 2013. Introduction to the Arizona Sky Island Arthropod Project (ASAP): systematics, biogeography, ecology and population genetics of arthropods of the Madrean Sky Islands. In: Merging science and management in a rapidly changing world: biodiversity and management of the Madrean Archipelago III. 2012 May 1-5, Tucson, AZ. (G.J. Gottfried, P.F. Ffolliott, B.S. Gebow, L.G. Eskew, compilers). Proceedings RMRS-P-67. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 

Brusca, R.C. and W. Moore. 2013. A Natural History of the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona with an Introduction to the Madrean Sky Islands.  Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Press. 232 pp.