ABSTRACT
Discovered by Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage in 1502, Costa Rica received the Spanish name of the rich coast because of the variety of gold ornaments that the indigenous people displayed during the first contacts with the Spaniards. The estimation of the country's species numbers faces many of the challenges of the world's taxonomists, even for a nation that is among the best-known in the tropics. Biodiversity inventories, as well as the analysis of the distribution of species, are crucial conditions to understand and maintain the functionality of ecosystems and of the services they provide. However, there are few job positions to address these processes. The extensive exposure to oceans influences many characteristics of the country's climate such as the patterns of rain distribution and erosion including the orogenic location of rivers and watersheds. A concerted, multidisciplinary effort is required to understand and respond to the challenges of balancing economic growth with biodiversity protection.
