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

[9977959]欧文、维格曼和耶茨他们对世界上的细尾蝇（有些被称为细尾蝇）进行了卓有成效和雄心勃勃的研究，目前已有大约4000种已被描述的物种。为了重新开展这项研究，迈克尔·欧文（伊利诺伊大学）、布莱恩·维格曼（北卡罗来纳州立大学）和大卫·耶茨（澳大利亚昆士兰大学）组成的研究小组继续进行分类专著、学生培训和计算机数据库的项目。为了全面了解这一原始双翅目昆虫群的生物多样性、进化和生物地理。这是由PEET活动（加强分类学专业知识伙伴关系）支持的关于双翅虫多样性的三个活跃项目之一。这些昆虫的博物馆收藏，不是特别丰富，因为成虫稀少，已经通过在几个国家的实地考察大大增加，重点是收集未成熟阶段，以获得从幼虫到成虫的生命周期的完整描述尽可能多的物种。这些苍蝇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6万多件藏品，并继续从大洋洲、印度和南美洲的干旱地区收集新材料。通过对核基因和线粒体基因的分子系统分析，将进一步获得具有分类信息的形态学特征，包括通过扫描电子显微镜观察到的微形态学特征，从而为类群的属类和部落分类构建一个系统发育框架。具有可管理的物种数量的进化支成为密集修订和专题分析的焦点，研究产品包括交互式识别密钥、图像和插图、地理分布图、有效的科学名称和分类同义词命名器。在更新项目期间，继续对双翅目昆虫的分类、生物学和进化方面的专家进行培训，并涉及本科生、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受到了欢迎，他们将帮助指导学生研究特定地区的雷维德类群。数据库继续在MANDALA上开发，MANDALA是为这个项目创建的标本数据库，它已被证明对其他几个关注其他生物的PEET项目很有用。这方面的工作仍在继续，相关的鉴定软件也在继续，以使这些资料可以在网络上作为昆虫学和其他学科分类分析的工具。该项目得到了像施林格基金会这样的私人来源的重要和值得赞扬的支持，这使得在进行研究和培训方面有可能具有世界范围的视野。

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.