A Comparative Approach to Dating the Diversification of Hawaiian Diptera

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The Hawaiian Islands provide an unparalleled system for understanding species formation. This biodiversity hotspot contains large numbers of species that occur nowhere else in the world. One very diverse group is the Hawaiian files (Diptera). DNA sequences will be used to determine the evolutionary history of the flies, and then the history will permit testing of biogeographic, ecological, and evolutionary hypotheses. Powerful methods for determining the timing of historical events will permit assessment of when the flies dispersed from one island to the next. With the information on relationships among species and timing of dispersal, it will be possible to investigate evolutionary processes (e.g., speciation, extinction, adaptation) that occur in disparate groups of Hawaiian flies, each of which exhibits unique genetic and ecological characteristics.Broader impacts of this work include education and outreach, participation of underrepresented groups, and the development of analytical and computational approaches to investigate island evolution, biogeography, speciation, divergence-time estimation, and biodiversity conservation. The field and laboratory components will train Berkeley graduate and undergraduate students, as well as native Hawaiian high school students. Extensive field data on distribution and abundance of Hawaiian insects, summarized in searchable online databases, will facilitate conservation management decisions. Finally, this work will provide a unified methodological framework for understanding the evolution of biodiversity in island systems.