Phylogenetic and evolutionary genetic studies on Drosophilid flies in the east Asia region.

东亚地区是北半球温带生物多样性水平最高的地区，因此对研究果蝇的进化历史和物种形成机制具有重要意义。直到20世纪70年代，人们对亚洲大陆地区的果蝇区系知之甚少。然而，在日本和中国科学家的国际合作下进行了广泛的调查(由科学研究资助(A)(1)；2000-2002)，并带来了相当数量的关于中国东南部果蝇动物群的知识。这些调查的结果不仅值得对该科的系统发育和分类进行修订，而且还发现了许多新的物种，包括那些对研究物种形成机制有用的物种。本项目旨在开展东亚地区果蝇进化生物学的新合作研究。专家们将参与该项目，研究他们自己或合作的进化研究主题，如分类学、系统发育、物种形成机制和分子进化。在项目期间（2003-2005），对中国东南部、印度尼西亚、越南和马来西亚的许多自然保护区进行了实地调查。结果，许多已知物种被添加到这些地区的区系名单中，并收集了许多可疑物种或新物种的标本。对新物种的描述主要集中在长期被遗忘在果蝇主要分类研究中的Steganinae亚科。从分类、细胞遗传学、群体遗传学和分子系统发育等方面对果蝇近缘类群的物种形成过程有了新的认识。

The East Asian region is endowed with the highest level of bio-diversity in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, and therefore, of crucial importance in investigating the evolutionary history and mechanism of speciation in drosophilids. Until 1970's, drosophilid fauna in the continental Asian region was poorly known. However, extensive surveys have been made under international cooperation among scientists from Japan and China (supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)(1) ; 2000-2002), and have brought about a considerable amount of knowledge on the drosophilid faunas in the southeast China. The results obtained from these surveys not only deserve the revision of phylogeny and taxonomy of this family but also have revealed many new species including those that are useful in investigating mechanisms of speciation.This project aims to develop a new cooperative study on the evolutionary biology of drosophilids in the East Asian region. Specialists are expected to participate in the project to study their own or cooperative research themes of evolutionary interests such as taxonomy, phylogeny, mechanisms of speciation and molecular evolution. During the term of project (2003-2005), field surveys at many nature reserves in southeastern China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia were performed. As a result, many known species were added to the faunal list of these regions and specimens of many questionable or new species were collected. Efforts of the description of new species were made focusing the subfamily Steganinae that has long been left behind form the main taxonomic studies of drosophilids. Many new knowledge for speciation process of several closely related species groups of Drosophila were obtained from taxonomic, cytogenetic, population genetic and molecular phylogenetic studies.