Dissertation Research: Field Work in Support of a Phylogenetic Study of the Mosquito Tribe Sabethini (Diptera:Culicidae)

小行星9311376 Sabethini（双翅目：蚊科）是最不知名的蚊子部落，但他们是相当大的医学和生物学的兴趣。 物种分布在世界各地的环亚热带地带，在热带实现其最大的多样性。 除了少数例外，所有都限于将卵沉积在植物保持的沃茨（凤梨，猪笼草，种子荚等）。 该分类群表现出多种非典型的蚊子行为，如从蚂蚁那里偷花蜜和雌性产卵。 此外，12个属中有3个具有虫媒病毒的能力。 由于缺乏明确的系统发育假说，阻碍了从进化的角度对这些现象的研究。 我们的初步数据表明，Sabethini是一个单系群，然而，两个较大的属是复系。 论文将包括在世界范围内的系统发育关系的研究。 来自三个生命阶段的形态特征系统将被用来产生一个强大的关系假设。 在此，我们请求为博物馆和实地研究提供资金，以增加在初步分析中发现有问题的关键旧大陆分类群和群体的覆盖面。 我们希望我们的研究结果对蚊子分类和进化生物学的其他领域产生直接影响。这个博士论文改进奖为研究生在巴西进行实地考察和研究主要收藏中的蚊子材料提供旅费和用品。 该项目将产生一个蚊子部落Sabethini所需的重大全球修订。 这个部落中的一些物种传播由虫媒病毒引起的疾病，因此建立它们的关系将具有医学意义。 此外，这种对关系的理解将为解决这些蚊子所表现出的有趣的行为现象提供一个有价值的框架，例如雌性卵孵化和从蚂蚁那里偷花蜜。***

9311376 Woolley The Sabethini (Diptera: Culicidae) are the least well known of the mosquito tribes, yet they are of considerable medical and biological interest. Species are distributed worldwide in a circumsubtropical band, achieving their greatest diversity in the tropics. With few exceptions, all are restricted to depositing eggs in plant held waters (bromeliads, pitcher plants, seed pods, etc.). The taxon exhibits a diversity of behaviors atypical for mosquitoes, such as nectar stealing from ants and egg brooding by females. In addition, three of the twelve genera have the capacity to vector arboviruses. Lack of explicit phylogenetic hypotheses has prevented the examination of these phenomena from an evolutionary standpoint. Our preliminary data indicate that Sabethini is a monophyletic group, however, two of the larger genera are polyphyletic. The dissertation will include study of phylogenetic relationships on a worldwide basis. Morphological character systems from three life stages will be used to produce a robust hypothesis of relationships. Here we request funds for museum and field studies to increase coverage of critical Old World taxa and groups found to be problematic in preliminary analyses. We expect our results to have an immediate impact on mosquito classification and other fields in evolutionary biology. %%% This PhD dissertation improvement award provides travel money and supplies for a graduate student to do field work in Brazil and study mosquito material in major collections. The project will produce a needed major worldwide revision of the mosquito tribe Sabethini. Some species in this tribe transmit diseases caused by arboviruses, so establishing their relationships will have medical importance. In addition, such an understanding of relationships will provide a valuable framework for addressing interesting behavioral phenomena exhibited by these mosquitoes such as female egg brooding and nectar stealing from ants. ***