PEET: Monography And Phylogeny Of New World Scarabaeoid Beetles

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Scarab beetles are prominent members of the insect fauna and are important biocontrol agents, pollinators, agricultural pests, and habitat indicators. Despite their economic importance, diversity, and ecological significance, less than 50% of the New World genera of scarabs can be identified with reliability. The New World tropics contains the greatest diversity of scarab species, yet it is the poorest known taxonomically. Scarab groups from this region were selected for training in monography, phylogeny, and bioinformatics. The proposed research will create comprehensive catalogs and electronic databases of specimen-level information, including character data, geographic and temporal distributions, host plant associations, and images. It will produce monographs, an identification guide to genera of New World scarabs, and a database of New World genera of scarabs that are retrievable electronically. Phylogenetic research will stabilize the higher-level classification of the Scarabaeoidea by targeting enigmatic and poorly known groups. The research will contribute to the development of computer infrastructure for organizing and accessing knowledge about scarab beetles, and it will provide the foundation for future work in scarab systematics. This research extends the goals of our previous NSF-PEET support by creating keys and databases to all genera of New World scarab beetles (approximately 600), and it builds on our existing foundation in scarab systematics to monograph poorly known groups of New World scarab beetles and train students in scarab systematics. These activities will contribute directly to the training of a new generation of systematists as well as advance our knowledge of a prominent (but poorly known) superfamily of insects. Monographic works, electronic databases, interactive keys, and newly trained systematists are needed in order to meet the global needs for knowledge of biodiversity and to strengthen the foundation for all fields of biology. One of the most important benefits of monographic research is a predictive system of classification. Results of the phylogenetic analyses will be used to stabilize the current classification of scarabs in this study. A natural classification of scarab groups can be used to address other questions that include: evolution of parental care, evolution of horns, biogeography, evolution of myrmecophily, and others. The on-line key and bioinformatics resources for all New World scarab genera will create the bench-mark for Scarabaeoidea systematics. It will be useful to people engaged in agriculture, research, education, and natural resource management. The guide will form the foundation for keys to all world Scarabaeoidea, a future project that would involve participants from around the world.