Muscoid Diptera biodiversity

目前的生物多样性危机是一个全球现象，某些地区，如北极，面临着快速环境变化的最直接风险。因此，了解过去和现在的生物多样性资源对于我们评估生物群落最近变化的程度和预测未来趋势的能力至关重要。虽然昆虫在数量和物种丰富度方面在大多数陆地生态系统中占主导地位，但对其多样性和生态的了解远远落后于植物和脊椎动物，特别是在北方生境。在加拿大，与许多其他国家一样，这种知识差距主要是由于物种数量巨大，而分类学专门知识基本上无法匹配，这种情况严重阻碍了我们评估环境变化对我国昆虫动物区系的入侵和本地成分的多样性、分布和群落组成的影响的能力。

The current biodiversity crisis is a global phenomenon, and certain regions such as the arctic are at most immediate risk from rapid environmental changes. Consequently, knowledge of past and present biodiversity resources is essential to our ability to evaluate the extent of recent changes in biological communities and forecast future trends. While insects dominate most terrestrial ecosystems in terms of abundance and species richness, knowledge of their diversity and ecology lags well behind that of plants and vertebrates, especially in northern habitats. In Canada, as in many other countries, this knowledge gap is primarily due to overwhelming species numbers largely unmatched by taxonomic expertise, a situation that seriously hampers our ability to assess the impacts of environmental changes on the diversity, distribution and community composition of both invasive and native components of our entomological fauna.