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by Scott E. Brooks & Jade Savage
Preparations are currently underway for the annual Informal NADS
Conference to be held in conjunction with the joint Entomological
Society of Canada and Entomological Society of America meeting during
December 3rd -7th in Montreal, Quebec. This years meeting
is shaping up to be very interesting and will feature a systematics
session as well as a mini-symposium on the use of Diptera in biotic
surveys. In the systematics session, Miranda Smith will discuss
her work on the phylogeny of Simulium (sensu stricto) using
molecular techniques and Jeff Cumming will present his and Brad
Sinclair's new phylogenetic classification of the Empidoidea. The
Diptera in Biotic Surveys mini-symposium will feature
talks by Brian Brown, Fiona Hunter, Steve Marshall and Brian Wiegmann,
as well as reports on various ongoing Diptera surveys. If anyone
has any items they wish to report on or discuss following the symposium
talks or at the Business Meeting please contact us at sbrook2@po-box.mcgill.ca
or jsavag1@hotmail.com
or use our regular mail, phone or FAX (given below), so that we
can include this information in the program which will appear in
the next issue of Fly Times. In order to ensure the post-meeting
merriment of all Dipterists in attendance and to locate a suitable
venue for further discussion and interaction, we have launched an
intensive sampling campaign of all the local watering holes within
stumbling distance of the Conference site. All in all, this year's
meeting promises to be a great time. We look forward to seeing you
in Montreal!
Scott E. Brooks & Jade Savage
Lyman Entomological Museum,
Macdonald Campus, McGill University
Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC
H9X 3V9, Canada
Tel: (514) 398-7915
FAX (514) 398-7990
by Frank E. French
Dear Fly Folks:
Here is some information on a proposed site for a Spring/ Summer
field meeting to be held in 2001. We need your feedback to put things
in motion. PLEASE indicate your preferences and get them back to
me NOW. I'll consolidate for presentation to the NADS and the Biting
Fly Workshop leaderships. Please indicate your preference below
either with "P" = preferred; "A"
= acceptable; or "X" if not acceptable.
Is this area a desirable venue? Y/N____ ; 2001 _____ ; or other
_______
Preference for Length of the Meeting: 3 days ____ ; or 4 days ____
; or other _______
Preference for timing of meeting: between May 14 - 27 _____ ; or
other ____________
Best time of the Week: Mid-week ______ ; or over a weekend ______
Bunk at Sul Ross State University campus in Alpine _____ ; bunk
at a motel at Ft Davis_____
Discussion: Foremost, are you willing to take the trouble to get
to this region of Texas? It is 150-200 miles of desert driving from
the Odessa-Midland or El Paso airports. You will have to arrange
for a rental vehicle to transport you to the venue.
The timing suggested is an attempt to pick a good time to collect
a mixture of late spring and early summer species before the hot
dry weather. This area, especially the Davis Mountains, is under
collected. I can apply for a State Park group collecting permit
(with a year's notice). There is a possibility that we can get access
to the vast, former domain of the "Republic of Texas"
which was confiscated and turned over to The Nature Conservancy.
There are a variety of habitats in this Chihuahuan Desert region,
from hilltops to flatlands. See the web page of Sul Ross [www.sulross.edu/~biology/]
and your handy west Texas road map. Dr. Diane Wood is in her first
year at Sul Ross and has been most cooperative. She has interest
in aquatic insects, particularly the Trichoptera. The State Park
is in the edge of the Davis Mts.
May is tourist season At a motel, we would have to rent a meeting/work
room. Cost of a room is $57 at the Ft. Davis Motor Inn. On the Sul
Ross Campus the housing would be dormitory style at $10/night for
shared room, $20 private, either case bring your own bedding and
linens. The meeting and work space would be cheap. Their insect
collections would be near and with, perhaps, some support from the
university. State schools have anti-alcohol rules. For food we could
go off campus. This is a "dry" area; the nearest legal
beer/wine is many miles away. After all this is the new wild, wild,
West. I grew up under such conditions, and look what it did to me!
For further info contact me at the address below (in short order!)
Dr. Frank E. French
Department of Biology,
Georgia Southern University,
Statesboro, GA 30460-8042, USA.
email: french@gasou.edu
Tel: (912) 681-5593
Fax: 912 681 0845
from Jeffrey W. Adams
The 2000 Macroinvertebrate Taxonomic Workshop - Diptera will again
be held at Central Washington University in Ellensburg Washington,
thanks to the good graces of Skip Smith and the school, on April
28, 29, and 30, 2000. Dr. Jon Gelhaus from Academy of Natural Sciences
will give us the skinny on Tipulidae and Dr. William Turner from
Washington State University will provide his general Diptera larvae
expertise. The workshop and manual are developed with taxonomists
in mind, so experience in family and genus level identification
is very helpful. The fee is $75 (payable to The Xerces Society at
the address below) for which the workshop and a proceedings manual
will be provided. Space is limited to 50 so please contact me and
reserve your spot. A list of those I've heard from is posted on
the web site http://www.xerces.org/diptera.htm
(this is a new address as of 1/19). This website will serve as the
location for useful information and updates, but feel free to contact
me (info below) with any questions or comments.
If you're interested in assisting with the manual, please contact
Jeff Adams or Bob Wisseman (wisseman@aquaticbio.com).
Let us know the family or families for which you would like to gather
literature and figures. Please spread the word, as I'm sure I've
missed somebody. The names on my contact list can be viewed at the
workshop website. If you scan through it and see that I've missed
an appropriate recipient please let me know. I look forward to seeing
you there!
Jeffrey W. Adams,
Director of Aquatic Programs,
The Xerces Society,
4828 Southeast Hawthorne Blvd.,
Portland, OR 97215-3253 USA
e-mail: jadams@xerces.org
from Claudio Carvalho
Universidade Federal do Paraná, Departamento de Zoologia,
Curitiba, Brazil
A symposium on the Systematics and Phylogeny of Diptera
organized by C.J.B. de Carvalho, M. S. Couri and J.M. Cumming is
planned for August at the International Congress of Entomology in
Brazil. The following symposium presentations are confirmed:
- Taxonomic aspects of basal Diptera phylogeny. D. de S. Amorim.
- An overview on the systematics of the Neotropical Culicidae.
R.L. de Oliveira.
- Recent advances on the systematics of the Crocidiinae (Diptera:
Bombyliidae). C.J.E. Lamas,
N. L. Evenhuis & M. S. Couri.
- A new phylogenetic classification of the Empidoidea (Diptera:
Eremoneura). J.M. Cumming &
B.J. Sinclair.
- Circumpolar distribution of Hilara (Empididae). M.
Chvála.
- Phylogenetic studies in the Ephydridae (Diptera). W. Mathis.
- Recent advances of the phylogeny and biogeography of Muscidae.
M.S. Couri & C.J.B. de Carvalho.
- Native New World Rhinophoridae and their transantarctic ties.
T. Pape.
- Phylogenetic relationships among the Polideini (Diptera:
Tachinidae). J.E. O'Hara.
by Scott Fitzgerald
Department of Entomology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon
The NADS meeting went well overall, but the low attendance was
a bit disappointing. Alessandra Baptista, University of Maryland
gave an interesting paper on her preliminary results of a cladistic
analysis of the family Aulacigastridae (sensu lato) and Dan Hagan
gave an interesting co-authored paper on the Ceratopogonidae of
Norway. After the talks Kevin Holston, University of Illinois gave
a progress report on the therevid PEET project. Darlene Judd, Oregon
State University and Chris Thompson, National Museum of Natural
History, gave an update on the Costa Rica ATBI, and Chris and Will
Reeves, Clemson University gave an update on the Great Smoky Mountain
ATBI. There was also some talk about the next NADS field meeting
taking place in Alpine, Texas, but no decisions were made. As for
the organizers of next years NADS informal conference the torch
has been passed to Jade Savage and Scott Brooks of McGill University
(see above for their invitation to the meetings).
by Riley Nelson
I will be working on a survey of the invertebrates for the next
five years on the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument just
north of the Grand Canyon. I expect to pay particular attention
to the Diptera. In addition to hand collecting, I will be using
yellow pans, malaise traps, and pitfall traps. I would appreciate
any volunteers for identifications! Also, if anyone is in the vicinity
and would like to join me for extended field trips there, let me
know. It is a fantastic spot, with elevation running from about
4000 to 10000 feet. Sites range from wet aspen meadows and tumbling
mountain streams to slickrock and sand. I will be writing yearly
reports on the taxa found to the managing agency, the Bureau of
Land Management. I am considering a way to offer to host the North
American Dipterists in this area. Contact me, Riley Nelson at:
rileynelson@byu.edu
or
Dr. C. Riley Nelson
Department of Zoology, WIDB 574
Brigham Young University
Provo, UTAH 84602 USA
Tel: (801) 378-1345
from Brian Brown
Mike Sharkey and Brian Brown have secured a three-year National
Science Foundation grant to survey insects in Colombia. Under this
project, which will be operated with the collaboration of the Humboldt
Institute in Colombia, we will place Malaise traps in 8 national
parks in Colombia (we already are sampling in 4 parks), spanning
a wide variety of habitats, elevations and climates. The results
will be large collections of insects for the Humboldt Institute
and cooperating taxonomic experts, species lists and species accumulation
curves for focal taxa. Opportunities for collaboration exist; please
contact Brian Brown if interested.
Brian V. Brown,
Entomology Section Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County,
900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles,
CA, 90007, USA
Tel: (213) 763-3363
FAX: (213) 746-2999
email: bbrown@nhm.org
The editors (i.e. Art and Jeff) would like to invite contributions
discussing the relative merits of light traps which work best for
trapping Diptera (and especially YOUR Diptera). What are the relative
merits of inflorescent, UV, and mercury? What are the best arrangements
for these (e.g. intensity, position, on sheets, or are there good
automatic systems)? Please write and tell what your experience has
been. Remember, contributions dont have to be long!
by Steve Marshall
Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Ontario
This past December I attended two meetings dealing with arthropod
inventories - the annual meeting of Discover Life in America
(the Great Smoky Mountain National Park ATBI), and the annual Entomology
Collections Network Meeting where I reported on the Diptera TWIG
of the INBio Costa Rican species inventory. Both meetings gave me
occasion to consider the viability, and desirability, of involvement
with different kinds of inventory projects, ranging from these major
international projects through to local efforts such as the Bruce
Peninsula Arthropod Inventory (a project that has soaked up much
of my summer research time in recent years). Here are some of my
thoughts on the matter.
It is clear that every major arthropod inventory depends on the
participation of a relatively small group of insect systematists,
and on access to appropriate reference collections. Without help
from most of a dozen key dipterists (I dont need to name them!),
for example, large chunks of any regions biodiversity are
likely to remain unidentified. It is less clear just what the systematics
community can expect to get out of involvement with big survey projects,
or what survey projects should expect from the systematics community.
At this Decembers meeting of the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park All Taxon Biological Inventory (GSMNP ATBI), opinions on these
matters ranged from we should expect the taxonomists to do
it for free through to we need the full commitment of
the taxonomic community, and this project should not proceed till
we have the funds to support their work. There is currently
inadequate support for the latter approach, and the former approach
has unfortunately alienated some groups of systematists. It has
also been a factor in the resignation of some former taxonomic working
group leaders initially recruited to that particular project with
the promise that it would be a true ATBI, and the expectation that
it would be a real shot in the arm for systematics.
The dipterological component of the GSMNP, lead by Peter Adler,
got a great kick-start with last springs fly
quest following the NADS meeting, so things are happening
with this project. But, is the GSMNP project really an ATBI, or
just a laudable effort to involve the taxonomic community in the
sort of opportunistic biodiversity stock-taking that every park
should be involved with? More importantly, from the point of view
of our community, what is in it for us? These questions are intertwined,
and more complicated than they seem at first, so lets step
back and examine the different ways some other inventory projects
seem to be proceeding.
Costa Rican Dipteran diversity projects:
The main biodiversity inventory project currently running in Costa
Rica is a scaled-down reincarnation of Dan Janzens grand vision
of a Costa Rican all taxon biological inventory (ATBI). Selected
taxa of selected regions in Costa Rica are to be intensively studied
for a 7-year period, 2 years of which have already passed. Obviously,
Diptera is one of those selected taxa. The project is well-funded,
mostly by the World Bank Global Environment Fund, and the lions
share of the funding will stay with INBio and will be spent in Costa
Rica. Twelve (wow!) people - two technicians, two curators, and
eight parataxomomists - are employed full-time to work on Diptera
in Costa Rica, and a large slice of our international community
is committed to helping with the project by revising major groups
for Costa Rica, writing chapters for the manual of Costa Rican Diptera
etc. This is probably the most ambitious inventory project in the
world today, but it is still an opportunistic, some-taxon inventory,
with goals driven by available and willing systematic expertise.
It is well-organised, and well-managed, largely due to the dedication
and ability of individuals, like the Diptera working group coordinator
Manuel Zumbado, who work on the project full time. The organization
of the Diptera component of this project has also been enhanced
by the dedication of international Diptera taxonomists including
co-coordinator Monty Wood, newsletter editor Art Borkent, and Manual
editor-in-chief Brian Brown. Brian is also coordinating the Diptera
part of another major Costa Rican inventory project, the Arthropods
of La Selva project. Each person involved with these projects would
probably answer the question what is in it for me in
different ways. Most of the committed individuals are hooked on
Costa Rican fieldwork, have active research programs on Neotropical
Diptera and benefit from the flow of well-prepared specimens collected
during this project. They will also enhance their publication records
by publishing novel findings during the project, and will benefit
from the opportunity to publish their summary findings in fairly
high-profile, paid-for publications towards the end of the project.
There are, of course, many other benefits in being part of a successful
large project, including opportunities for joint research with other
dipterists, and there seems to me to be many good reasons for involvement
with this project. Still, it is not an ATBI.
The GSMNP ATBI
When the GSMNP ATBI (recently incorporated as Discover Life in America)
was first announced, it was touted as the first large-scale, yet
feasible, ATBI. The flora and fauna of the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park is much less diverse and much better known than that
of Costa Rica, but it is still estimated to be a respectable 100
thousand species or so. The argument for a GSMNP ATBI had (and still
has!) everything going for it - it was a timely project that was
crying out to be done. There was every reason it should have been
viewed on par with other moonshot scale science, and
every expectation it would receive major funding. Here at last we
were going to see taxonomy treated like Big Science - no more running
inventories as sideline labours-of-love, supported by retired colleagues
and volunteers working in their basements. At last, we were going
to see some serious investment in the continents crumbling
taxonomic infrastructure.
As I understood it, the original vision of the GSMNP ATBI was go
big or stay home. TWIG leaders were asked to lend their names
to the projects with the understanding that once things were up
and running the working groups would have the resources to make
things happen - to support technical assistants, new positions,
graduates and postdoctoral students, etc. etc. In fact, that has
not happened. Nonetheless, the GSMNP ATBI is currently working,
in as much as it is working at all, for the same reasons that dozens
of other park surveys are proceeding at various paces. The GSMNP
is a great place to work and the fact that there is an ongoing inventory
project there provides a great incentive to focus research in the
Park (if that was not already the case). Even for those of us from
too far away to make regular visits to the Park, the promise of
hassle-free permits, logistical support, and a congenial atmosphere
for collecting is pretty attractive. Lots of taxonomy will get done
in support of the Park inventory, much of it at little or no cost
to the GSMNP ATBI. I certainly intend to maintain my
involvement with this interesting project, but this is not an ATBI
(yet) and not fundamentally different from ongoing work at a dozen
other parks, many much closer to my home than GSMNP. Things will
change when Discover Life in America is really in a position to
shore up that aforementioned taxonomic infrastructure, but till
then it has to compete on an equal footing with the other projects
most of us are working on.
What is going to happen to the GSMNP ATBI? My guess is that it
will continue as yet another Park survey, generating partial lists
which will be built upon in the future. There is nothing wrong with
that. Still, it would be great if this project was re-kindled to
the degree that a couple of full-time insect systematists could
be hired to manage parts of the inventory, and if indeed it could
generate the funding to pay the lab and labour costs involved with
thoroughly documenting this fascinating fauna.
Other arthropod inventories:
Although the GSMNP and Costa Rican inventories are getting much
of the attention, the batches of flies I have been getting for identification
suggest that there are dozens of other significant inventories quietly
ticking along, and there seems to be a real movement towards taking
stock in our parks and other natural areas. As that movement
gains momentum, and every park finally recognises the need to document
its fauna (or explicitly recognises the limits to such documentation),
the linkage and co-development of various parks inventory databases
will play a major role in the documentation of North American biodiversity.
In the meantime, even a small inventory of a few taxa can help parks
recognise faunal change, threatened species, unique faunal elements
etc. I am involved with ongoing inventory efforts in a number of
parks in my home province of Ontario, with my major focus being
the Bruce Peninsula National Park. The Bruce Survey ran for several
years without any funding, but as of fall 1999 Parks Canada has
provided enough funding to pay a M.Sc. student (Cathy Onodera) to
work full-time on the survey. Obviously, there are many taxa that
none of the Guelph-based entomologists can competently identify,
and we look forward to the kind of support from the taxonomic community
that my students and I have enjoyed for previous inventory projects.
All we can offer in return are reciprocal identification services,
good specimens, and a welcome to actively participate in work on
the beautiful Bruce Peninsula. This, however, is as much as is being
offered to systematists supporting better funded, high-profile projects.
Can this time-honoured model continue to work as the number of professional
systematists (at least professional systematists who still actually
identify things) shrinks and the need for survey work increases
exponentially?
Somewhere along the line, the trend towards diminishing numbers
of permanent professional positions for (morphological) systematists
is going to have to be reversed. I am extremely appreciative of
the help I get from my friends and colleagues who help me out with
identifications, but realise that many of them are retired, not
employed as systematists, or otherwise are helping out because of
their dedication to the discipline, not because it is their
job. This is not a sustainable situation!
Long-term parks inventories:
So far I have commented on two major approaches to inventory projects
- the high-input, high-profile megaproject approach, and the more
modest grassroots regional survey. In fact, neither
approach would be necessary if we had a combination of well-maintained,
securely funded collections, and parks management policies that
encouraged entomological research. In the past, some parks behaved
like walled fortresses, keeping insect collectors out with almost
impenetrable paperwork barriers. What those parks failed to realise
was that every specimen collected by a representative of a permanent
insect collection is likely to end up pinned and labeled in the
collection. In the fullness of time, every such specimen is likely
to be databased and slowly climb up the ladder of curatorial levels
until it comprises an authoritatively identified, species-level
record for the park. It might take 5, 10, or even 50 years, but
the important point is that, once the specimen is accessed, it
is very likely to ultimately represent a species record in a database.
It thus would show considerable foresight for parks to realise that
by far the most cost-effective way to address the inevitable need
for arthropod inventory is to encourage professional entomologists
to collect within the parks boundaries. As a case in point, let
me mention our incipient survey of the insects of Canadas
most southerly piece of land, Point Pelee National Park. Because
of its interesting fauna, University of Guelph entomologists have
long collected there, and the park has been great about granting
permits and helping out. Over the 30 years or so that we have been
collecting there for various purposes, thousands of specimens have
accumulated and been subject to the usual curatorial efforts put
into the collection by students, faculty, visiting systematists,
colleagues borrowing material from the collection for revisions,
etc. For the price of a couple of months of student salary, this
last summer we were able to enter all our accumulated Pelee specimens
in the Guelph Collection into a BIOTA database. That database includes
about 1000 identified taxa, and represents a good start to a Pelee
insect survey at minimal cost to the National Park. The take-home
message here is that, for all the noise being made about ATBIs and
high profile biodiversity projects, the most cost-effective and
sure-fire way to move towards the documentation of biodiversity
is to do what most of us have already spent much of our lives doing
- keep on collecting, keep on building up collections, and keep
doing those revisions!
by Jim O'Hara
Systematic Entomology Section, ECORC, Agriculture & Agri-Food
Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
Persons wishing to read this account and view the associated pictures
may do so by visiting Issue 13 of The Tachinid Times at http://res.agr.ca/brd/tachinid/times/tach13.htm.
The account focuses on three of the more noteworthy mountain ranges
I visited in August 1999, namely the Huachuca Mountains southeast
of Tucson, the Animas Mountains in southwestern New Mexico, and
the Gila National Forest north of Silver City, New Mexico. Access,
habitats, and tachinid diversity are discussed.
by Jeff Cumming
Systematic Entomology Section, ECORC, Agriculture & Agri-Food
Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
Three new internet products on Diptera are now available on the
ECORC web site. Like our other Diptera web products they can all
be accessed by visiting the Diptera homepage of the Canadian National
Collection of Insects (CNC) Web Site at http://res.agr.ca/ecorc/cnc/diptera.htm
or by connecting to each document directly.
- Diptera types in CNC: Part 3. Schizophora (exclusive
of Tachinidae): http://res.agr.ca/brd/tachinid/titlp3htm.htm.
Based on the hardcopy publication by Bruce Cooper and myself this
catalogue documents the primary types of 1376 nominal species
of Schizophora (exclusive of Tachinidae) housed in the CNC. Entries
can be searched by taxon (including family), author, keyword,
etc.
Supplement: http://res.agr.ca/brd/tachinid/suptitl.htm. This
catalogue by Bruce Cooper, Jim O'Hara and myself updates Parts 1-4
of this series by documenting the primary types of over 200 nominal
species (in 29 families) of Diptera recently added to the CNC or
somehow overlooked during the preparation of the original four Parts.
As with the previous Parts entries can be searched by taxon (including
family), author, keyword, etc. No hardcopy publication of the Supplement
is planned since this web document will be continually updated as
types are deposited in the collection. Users are advised to first
search the appropriate Part and then the Supplement to obtain information
on the type holdings in the CNC for a particular group.
- Key to Diptera associated with cow dung: http://res.agr.ca/ecorc/apss/dungfly/dungfly.htm.
This online illustrated key allows easy identification of the
29 families of Diptera occurring in North America whose larvae
live in cow dung or liquid manure.
by Bill Ballard & Matt Dean
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois
Chicagos Field Museum would like to announce a useful new
website from which our Diptera collection can be searched. Combining
the volunteer efforts of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students (and two
teachers) involved in the museums BugCamp, we have
created a species-level database of over 47,000 specimens that includes
information on geography and type holdings. The address for the
website starts at http://www.fieldmuseum.org/bugcamp.
Go to http://www.fieldmuseum.org/bugcamp/dipsearch.htm
to search the Diptera collection.
by Steve Gaimari & Chris Thompson
Smithsonian Institution & Systematic Entomology Laboratory-USDA,
Washington, DC
A new URL for Diptera
The domain name 'diptera.org' has been reserved for the North American
Dipterists' Society (NADS). This means that the URL (WWW address)
'http://www.diptera.org'
will connect you directly to the Washington Diptera WWW site. However,
in the future, NADS could use this address to connect users to their
own site. Also, we have created a general e-mail address (diptera@sel.barc.usda.gov)
for messages to be sent to us about our WWW site or any of its included
databases, such as the Dipterists' Resource Directory or the BioSystematic
Database of World Diptera.
Dipterists' Resource Directory
Kyle Apigian has up-dated and revised this comprehensive world-wide
directory to Diptera workers. And with the help of George Venable
this directory is finally online at our Washington Diptera WWW site
(the specific URL is http://www.sel.barc.usda.gov/Diptera/worlddip.htm).
This directory is a searchable FileMakerPro database, not a simple
HTML list of names as are many of the other directories. Hence,
one may search for dipterists under their last name, city, state/province,
country or Diptera family or any combination of those fields. Also,
truncated searches are also possible. Hence, searching under 'Wood'
with also bring up 'Woodley'.
As this directory is very large, containing more than 2,000 people,
searches for specialists on specific taxon can be confusing to general
users. For example, currently if one entered the family 'Syrphidae',
the database would respond with the names of 182 people listed as
interested in flower flies. So, to help the general user find an
EXPERT willing to provide advice, especially identifications, we
will be adding the designation of EXPERT to selected individual
records. The requirements for being listed as an expert are: 1)
significant publications on the taxon or related ones; 2) endorsement
of fellow experts and colleagues; and 3) willingness to provide
advice to others. A mailing has been made to select colleagues asking
whether they would like to have their listings up-dated to reflect
their EXPERTISE. However, if you have not heard from us, please
feel free to write us to volunteer your expertise!
Please check the directory out and send corrections, revisions,
etc., to us at 'diptera@sel.barc.usda.gov'.
For security reasons, we had decided not to allow web-based revision
of user's data records.
Diptera Data Dissemination Disk
While volume 1 was issued about a year ago, volume 2 has been delayed.
Sorry! We have delayed the volume a few months to ensure a larger,
more diverse issue. Volume 2 will include more WWW sites (the therevid
site of Mike Irwin's PEET group in Illinois and Jim O'Hara's tachnid
site from Ottawa); new books (Norm Woodley's World Catalog of Stratiomyidae,
Kelvin Holston's therevid names) and new databases (Gail Kampmeier's
Mandala (the Irwin PEET biodiversity management system) & Al
Norrbom's fruit fly hosts). And as noted elsewhere the Dipterists'
Directory and BioSystematic Database of World Diptera will have
been greatly expanded and revised. And best of all, Jill Mullet
(of the Irwin PEET group) has prepared a new full color cover and
CD. Look for this volume around about early summer!
Plans are also underway to use this new publication medium for
rapid validation of new taxa. One of the key challenges of various
biodiversity programs, such as the Selective Taxa Biodiversity Inventory
(STBI) project of Costa Rica, is how to efficiently and effective
as well as rapidly make available new taxonomic information and
validate new taxa nomenclaturally. Thousands of new flies will have
to be named in the next few years if INBIO is to successfully complete
its STBI. The use of World-Wide-Web pages to treat taxa has been
recognized as the most efficient, effective and universal method
of getting taxonomic information to all. See sample pages at our
Diptera WWW site under Syrphidae, genus Ornidia. Unfortunately,
publication on the WWW does not fulfill the requirements of the
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature as the WWW does not
constitute published work within the meaning of the 4th edition
of the Code (see Article 9.8). However, publication of those same
pages in the Diptera Data Dissemination Disk does. Hence, the editor
will accept new taxon descriptions in the form of taxonomic WWW
pages for publication in future issues of the DDDD. Obviously all
scientific contributions to the DDDD will go through the normal
peer-review and editorial process.
BioSystematic Database of World Diptera
Through the generous support of the Schlinger Foundation, the BioSystematic
Database of World Diptera will post significant improvements this
coming year. First, we have been able to retain Steve Gaimari as
a post-Doctoral fellow to work on the Lauxanoidea (Lauxaniidae,
Chamaemyiidae, Eurychoromyiidae & Celyphidae). Second, we will
be able to put the database online. Third, we have purchased all
new species names from the Zoological Record, volume 115 (1978 )
to 136 (1999) in digital format. These records (some 25,000) will
essentially up-date most of the regional Diptera catalogs. And,
our data entry worker, Elaine Jamison, is almost finished keyboarding
the Afrotropical Diptera catalog. This will mean that only the Oriental
and Palaearctic Diptera catalogs need to be entered into the database.
Altogether this year's version of the database should include some
4,300 family-group names (essentially the same as version 1), 21,000
genus-group names (about 5% increase over version 1), 100,000 species-group
names (about 25% increase), and about 5,000 references (about 66%
increase).
The family-group names remain largely unchanged from the data records
taken from Sabrosky (1999), just a couple of new ones have been
added. The genus-group names have now been checked against Neave
and the current literature for homonyms. The bad news is that some
1,164 junior homonyms were identified of which 188 junior homonyms
are in current use. The good news is that is 188 new genera for
Neal to name! The area which needs the most work now is the references.
We plan to have the bibliographies from the Nearctic, Afrotropical
and Australasian and Oceanian catalogs incorporated this coming
year. The major problem with this effort is eliminating duplicates
and reconciling the differences among the bibliographies. A mailing
has gone out to specialists seeking assistance in preparing species-
level catalogs for various family units. The basic plan is to provide
assistance to specialist to prepare family-level treatments such
as Tom Pape did for the Sarcophagidae, Wayne Mathis for Ephydridae,
etc. We will provide a traditional paper-printed outlet in our series
Myia with the incorporation of the revised records in the BioSystematic
Database of World Diptera. Last year, we did the Tephritidae, this
year the Stratiomyidae by Norm Woodley will be out. And for 2001
we have promises for many more families. If you are interested in
preparing family-level treatments or in helping review such treatments,
please get in contact with us.
USNM Diptera Collection Moves and Improves
This past June the whole downtown Diptera collection moved from
the 6th floor of the West Wing of the National Museum of Natural
History to new quarters on the 6th floor in the East Court. For
the first time the Diptera collection has lots of expansion space.
The collection is housed in new compactors in a single linear phylogenetic
arrangement. So, with this new space we are adding new collections.
The personal collection of Paul Arnaud of California will be coming
to Washington this summer. The collection is very rich in western
flies, especially in the Tachinidae and Empidoidea. Also, over past
year we have had a number of specialists in to review and up-grade
various families (Jon Gelhaus, ANSP, Philadelphia, Sigitas Podenas,
Vilnius Univ., & Chen Young, CMNH, Pittsburg, for Tipuloidea;
Andrew Ozerov, ZMMU, Moscow, for Sepsidae and Graham Griffiths,
Edmonton on Anthomyiidae, as well as Steve Gaimari, our post-Doc,
for the Lauxaniiodea). And Emilia Nartshuk, ZISP, St. Petersburg,
will be coming this Fall to work on Chloropidae. [Remember visitor
grants are always available either from the Smithsonian short-term
visitor program (contact, Wayne Mathis) or the Diptera Unit itself,
through the S. W. Williston Diptera Research Fund or the C. W. Sabrosky
Fund (contact, Chris Thompson)].
Finally, we have new leadership in Washington, from a new Secretary
for the Smithsonian Institution, Larry Small, to new chair of the
Department of Entomology, Scott Miller, and new Research Leader
for the Systematic Entomology Laboratory, Mike Schauff.
Rob Cannings, Curator of Entomology at the Royal British Columbia
Museum in Victoria, Canada, has completed his PhD program at the
University of Guelph, Ontario studying in Steve Marshall's lab.
Rob took a two-year leave of absence from his museum job from August
1991 to August 1993 to take course work, then complete his thesis
back in Victoria. He defended his research on the systematics of
the asilid genus Lasiopogon in October 1999; the examining
committee included Monty Wood and Eric Fisher. An abstract of the
thesis is included below:
The Systematics of Lasiopogon Loew (Diptera: Asilidae):
This thesis is an investigation of the phylogenetic relationships
in the robber fly (Diptera: Asilidae) genus Lasiopogon Loew.
Although 118 species -- 49 of them undescribed -- are recognized,
only the derived L. opaculus section is revised. It consists
of 29 species, 14 of which are newly described: L. apache,
L. appalachensis, L. chrysotus, L. coconino, L. flammeus, L.
lavignei, L. lehri, L. leleji, L. marshalli, L. phaeothysanotus,
L. piestolophus, L. qinghaiensis, L. schizopygus and L. woodorum.
Three names are synonomized: L. aridus Cole & Wilcox
= L. quadrivittatus (Jones); L. atripennis Cole &
Wilcox = L. cinereus Cole; L. carolinensis Cole &
Wilcox = L. opaculus Loew. All species in the opaculus
section are described and illustrated and each has its geographical
distribution mapped. Identification keys are provided for all Nearctic
and East Palaearctic species.
The morphology of Lasiopogon is detailed; special attention
is paid to the male and female genitalia, which have been little
used in previous taxonomic works. For the first time, the gonostylus,
phallus, subepandrial sclerite, basal epandrial sclerite and spermathecae
are considered important structures in the taxonomy of the genus.
The placement of Lasiopogon in the Stichopogoninae is upheld;
it is considered the sister group to the remainder of the subfamily.
The possibility that the Stichopogoninae is linked to the Stenopogoninae
through the Australasian genus Bathypogon is explored. Lasiopogon
consists of two main clades: the cinctus clade is predominantly
West Palaearctic; the bivittatus clade is mainly Nearctic.
The opaculus section, the main object of this study, is a
monophyletic, derived lineage in the bivittatus clade. The
younger clades of the opaculus section live in the East Palaearctic.
A biogeographic hypothesis of the history of Lasiopogon
suggests that Lasiopogon may have originated in Laurasia
as early as the late Jurassic, although the phylogeny of the modern
fauna correlates best with geographical events beginning in the
Tertiary. The cinctus and bivittatus clades perhaps
diverged at the onset of Oligocene climatic cooling. In the Miocene,
populations of the opaculus section were continuous across
Beringia and into Asia. Almost all the extant East Asian species
groups originated at that time. One species, L. hinei, recolonized
North America in the Pleistocene.
Peter Cranston has moved from Australia to Davis, California to
take up the Evert and Marion Schlinger Chair of Systematic Entomology
and leaving CSIRO Entomology permanently. He'll continue to work
on Chironomidae, especially life histories, biodiversity and phylogeny,
retaining his past interest in gondwanan taxa and moving more into
some molecular systematics of targetted groups. For the Californian
fauna, an interactive LucID key with Automontage manipulated images
is a likely early project. Heres how to get hold of him:
Professor Peter S. Cranston,
Department of Entomology,
University of California,
Davis, CA 95616, USA
email: pscranston@ucdavis.edu
Tel: (530) 752 0493
FAX: (530) 752 9464 |