Muscoid Diptera biodiversity

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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.