CAREER: Systematics Research and Training in the Flies of the Culicoidea (Diptera: Culicomorpha)

黛布-0093392达琳·D·贾德博士俄勒冈州立大学的达琳·D·贾德获得了为期五年的职业资助，这笔资金将支持一个新的研究和培训项目，该项目将面向两名博士生和两名硕士研究生，对四个与人类健康密切相关的未被研究的苍蝇家族进行系统研究。每个学生的研究将集中在库蚊科(双翅目：库蚊目)中的一个家庭，或一个家庭中的一个小的自然群体，我们对这些家庭的关系知之甚少。专著将提供每一类群的全面全球报道，并将包括命名处理、所有生命阶段的物种描述、信息性特征系统的说明以及分布和生活史信息。识别码和标本/数字图像数据库将在万维网上提供。这些研究中的每一项都将提供形态和分子特征数据，这些数据将被结合起来，并使用分支学方法进行分析。之所以选择这四个苍蝇科，是因为它们所表现出的特征组合表明，它们在库蚊(人类疾病最重要的媒介)中的位置是不稳定的，但对更高级别的分类和关注苍蝇觅血进化的问题具有根本兴趣。苍蝇是地球上最成功的分类学群体之一，在农业害虫、人类和动物健康问题、营养循环和生物多样性的讨论中占有突出地位。尽管苍蝇及其近亲之间的关系很重要，但它们之间的关系是有争议的。到目前为止，原始苍蝇(如蚊子、蚊子、黑蝇、朋克)的形态研究在系统发育分析中严重依赖于基本计划编码，而分子研究经常受到分类单元采样问题的困扰。这项职业资助将把分类学研究、研究生教育和自然历史收藏方面的现代方法整合到一个项目中，为解决最重要的食疫苍蝇谱系之一的问题提供坚实的基础。

DEB-0093392Darlene D. JuddDr. Darlene D. Judd of Oregon State University has been awarded a five-year CAREER grant that will support a novel research and training program for two Ph.D. students and two M.S. students to undertake systematics research on four families of understudied flies of prime relevance to human health. Each student's research will focus on one of the families in the Culicoidea (Diptera: Culicomorpha), or a small natural group within a family, for which we have little understanding of relationships. Monographs will provide comprehensive global coverage of each group and will include treatment of nomenclature, descriptions of species for all life stages, illustrations of informative character systems, and distribution and life history information. Identification keys and specimen/digital image databases will be made available on WWW. Each of these studies will contribute morphological and molecular character data that will be combined and analyzed using cladistics methods. These four fly families were chosen because the combination of characters they display suggests their positions within the Culicomorpha (the most important vectors of human disease) are unstable, yet of fundamental interest to higher classification and questions focusing on the evolution of blood-feeding in flies.Flies are one of the most successful taxonomic groups on the planet and figure prominently in discussions of agricultural pests, issues in human and animal health, nutrient cycling and biodiversity. Despite their importance, relationships among flies and their close relatives are controversial. Morphological studies to date in the primitive flies (e.g. mosquitoes, gnats, black flies, punkies) have relied heavily on groundplan coding in phylogenetic analyses, while molecular studies are often plagued by problems in taxon sampling. This CAREER grant will integrate modern methods in taxonomic research, graduate education and natural history collections into a program that provides a firm foundation for solving problems on one of the most important lineages of pestiferous flies.