PEET: A World Monograph of the Therevidae (Insecta: Diptera)

PEET：Therevidae 世界专着（昆虫纲：双翅目）

• 批准号: 9977958
• 负责人: Michael Irwin
• 金额: $ 75万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-09-01 至 2006-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9977958&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PEET; World; Monograph; Therevidae; Insecta

9977958Irwin, Wiegmann, and Yeates In a renewal of their productive and ambitious study of the world's therevid flies (some known as stiletto flies), presently with 4,000 or so described species, the team of Michael Irwin (University of Illinois), Brian Wiegmann (North Carolina State University), and David Yeates (University of Queensland, Australia) continues a program of taxonomic monography, student training, and computer databasing, toward the goal of a comprehensive understanding of the biological diversity, evolution, and biogeography of this primitive group of dipteran insects. This is one of three active projects on dipteran diversity supported through the PEET activity, Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy. Museum collections of these insects, not especially abundant because of the rarity of adults, have been greatly augmented through field expeditions in several countries, with an emphasis on collecting immature stages to acquire a complete description of life cycles from larvae to adults of as many species as possible. Larvae of these flies usually live belowground, and feed upon other insects or soil organisms; their predaceous habits are thought to have ecological effects in the plant-root zone, but unreliable taxonomic identification impedes the study of these and other interesting biological problems. Databasing of the specimens now encompasses over 60,000 collections, and continues with new material from understudied arid regions in Australasia, India, and South America. The acquisition of taxonomically informative morphological characters, including micro-morphological features observed by scanning electron microscopy, will be augmented with molecular-systematic analyses of nuclear and mitochondrial genes, to construct a framework phylogeny for the generic and tribal classification of the group. Clades with a manageable number of species then become the focus of intensive revisionary and monographic analysis, with research products including interactive identification keys, images and illustrations, geographic distribution maps, and nomenclators of valid scientific names and taxonomic synonyms. Training of specialists in the classification, biology, and evolution of diptera continues during the renewal project, and involves students at undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels. As well, retired taxonomic specialists in Denmark and Russia have been welcomed onto the team, and will help mentor students in the study of particular regional groups of therevids. Database development continues on MANDALA, the specimen database created for this project, which has proved useful to several other PEET projects focused on other organisms. Work continues on this, and on related identification software, to make these available over the web as tools for taxonomic analysis in entomology and other disciplines. The project benefits from significant and commendable support from private sources like the Schlinger Foundation, which has made possible a world-wide perspective in the conduct of the research and training.

9977958欧文、韦格曼和耶茨对世界上的果蝇进行了富有成效和雄心勃勃的研究，（有些被称为stiletto苍蝇），目前有4,000种左右的描述，迈克尔欧文的团队，（伊利诺伊大学），Brian Wiegmann（北卡罗来纳州州立大学），以及大卫耶茨（澳大利亚昆士兰州大学）继续进行分类学专题、学生培训和计算机数据库的计划，朝着全面了解生物多样性、进化、和昆虫地理学。这是通过PEET活动支持的关于双翅目多样性的三个积极项目之一，加强分类学专业知识的伙伴关系。这些昆虫的博物馆收藏品，由于成虫稀少而不是特别丰富，通过在几个国家的实地考察，已大大增加，重点是收集未成熟阶段，以获得尽可能多的物种从幼虫到成虫的生命周期的完整描述。这些蝇类的幼虫通常生活在地下，以其他昆虫或土壤生物为食;它们的捕食习性被认为对植物根区有生态影响，但不可靠的分类鉴定阻碍了对这些和其他有趣的生物学问题的研究。标本的数据库现在包括60，000多个收藏品，并继续从澳大拉西亚，印度和南美洲的未充分研究的干旱地区收集新材料。收购的分类信息形态特征，包括微形态特征扫描电子显微镜观察到的，将增加与核和线粒体基因的分子系统分析，构建一个框架的属和部落分类的组。然后，具有可管理的物种数量的分支成为密集的修订和专题分析的焦点，研究产品包括交互式识别键，图像和插图，地理分布图，以及有效的科学名称和分类学同义词的命名者。 在更新项目期间，继续对双翅目分类、生物学和进化方面的专家进行培训，涉及本科生、研究生和研究生水平的学生。此外，丹麦和俄罗斯的退休分类学专家也被欢迎加入该团队，并将帮助指导学生研究特定的区域群体。数据库开发继续在MANDALA上进行，MANDALA是为该项目创建的标本数据库，已被证明对其他几个专注于其他生物的PEET项目有用。继续在这方面开展工作，并开发相关的识别软件，以便在网上提供这些软件，作为昆虫学和其他学科分类分析的工具。该项目得益于施林格基金会等私人来源的重大和值得赞扬的支持，这使得在进行研究和培训时能够有一个世界性的视角。