Gorongosa 2024-FULL-FINAL - Flipbook - Page 38
Understanding these interactions
is important because caterpillars are
a food web connector. In addition to
being hosts for a variety of parasites,
they eat plants, and are eaten by bats
and birds. The ones that get to complete their life cycle become moths
or butterflies, which pollinate more
plants and often, too, become food for
many different animals.
Massad came to Gorongosa in
2014 from Brazil, where she was a
post-doctoral student studying planteating animals and plant defenses in
the South American rainforest. Today
she is a mentor to master’s students in
Gorongosa, and an instructor in environmental assessment and tropical
ecology and conservation at Oregon
State University.
She explains that more than half of
all the described species of organisms
in the world are directly involved in
plant–herbivore–parasitoid interactions, though very little is known about
the actual diversity of parasitoids in
tropical ecosystems like Mozambique’s. To understand diversity in
Gorongosa, Massad says, one has to
understand the ecosystems of the
park—which means creating a baseline chart of interactions between its
incredibly diverse species.
PI OTR NA S KR EC KI
BEHOLD THE CATERPILLAR
Stunning to look at, the Rhanidophora
ridens is helping scientists like Tara
Massad branch together the tree of life
in Gorongosa National Park.
