Revisionary systematics of Nerioidea and Sphaeroceroidea (Diptera)

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The order Diptera is arguably the largest order of living things and is certainly the most important higher taxon in terms of its impact on human health and economy. Despite tremendous advances in Diptera taxonomy over the past decade, as encapsulated in the recent Diptera Manuals (Manual of Central American Diptera, Manual of Afrotropical Diptera), many of the genera, subfamilies and even families of Diptera remain to be adequately defined and most fly species remain to be described. Resolution of this important portion of the planet's biodiversity requires adequate specimen collections; only then can useful monophyletic groups be described and diagnosed. As a result of decades of directed fieldwork and careful specimen curation the University of Guelph Insect Collection now houses over a million Diptera specimens, mostly in the large superfamilies Nerioidea and Sphaeroceroidea. We are thus positioned to review and correct the higher classification of these superfamilies, while identifying and thoroughly revising significant clades or monophyletic subgroups. My students and I have so far discovered and formally described over a thousand new species and several higher taxa, but much remains to be done to combine these disparate components into a cohesive picture of phylogeny and diversity, and to produce a modern classification of these major fly clades. The combination of our unparalleled specimen collection and the taxonomic foundation already completed has provided a sound platform for a team, currently including external collaborators and doctoral students working on different subgroups of the Micropezoidea and Sphaeroceroidea, to monograph major parts of these taxa. Both Micropezoidea and Sphaeroceroidea offer enough structural complexity for comparative morphology to provide the basis for descriptions, thoroughly illustrated diagnoses and phylogenetic hypotheses. Species and major clade concepts generated by morphological analyses will be tested with cytochrome oxidase one sequences (“barcodes”) and then used as the basis for the development of more broadly integrated molecular/morphological phylogenies. Although the basis of our work is careful comparative morphology with an emphasis on complex internal character systems, molecular, ecological and morphological data will be carefully compared and integrated, with the results cast in contexts of zoogeography and conservation biology.