PEET: A World Monograph of the Therevidae (Insecta: Diptera)

9977958 Irwin、Wiegmann和Yeates对世界上现存的苍蝇(一些被称为细叶蝇)进行了富有成效和雄心勃勃的研究，目前已描述的物种约有4000种，由伊利诺伊大学的Michael Irwin、北卡罗来纳州立大学的Brian Wiegmann和澳大利亚昆士兰大学的David Yeates组成的团队继续进行分类专著、学生培训和计算机数据库处理，以全面了解这种原始的双翅目昆虫群体的生物多样性、进化和生物地理。这是由Peet活动支持的关于双翅目昆虫多样性的三个积极项目之一，该活动是加强分类学专门知识的伙伴关系。由于成虫的稀有，博物馆对这些昆虫的收藏并不特别丰富，通过在几个国家进行实地考察，大大增加了这些昆虫的藏品，重点是收集未成熟阶段，以获得从幼虫到成虫的完整描述，尽可能多的物种。这些苍蝇的幼虫通常生活在地下，以其他昆虫或土壤生物为食；它们的捕食习性被认为在植物根部具有生态效应，但不可靠的分类鉴定阻碍了对这些和其他有趣的生物学问题的研究。标本的数据库现在包括60,000多个收藏，并继续使用来自澳大拉西亚、印度和南美洲未被研究的干旱地区的新材料。获得分类信息丰富的形态特征，包括扫描电子显微镜观察到的微观形态特征，将通过对核基因和线粒体基因的分子系统分析来加强，为该群体的属和部落分类构建一个框架系统发育图。具有可管理数量的物种的分支随后成为密集的修正性和专题性分析的重点，研究产品包括交互式识别钥匙、图像和插图、地理分布图以及有效科学名称和分类同义词的命名。在更新项目期间，对双翅目分类、生物学和进化方面的专家的培训仍在继续，涉及本科生、研究生和研究生。此外，丹麦和俄罗斯的退休分类学专家也受到了欢迎，他们将帮助指导学生研究这些病毒的特定地区性群体。为该项目创建的标本数据库Mandala的数据库开发仍在继续，事实证明，这对其他几个专注于其他生物的Peet项目很有用。这方面的工作以及相关识别软件的工作仍在继续，以便将这些数据作为昆虫学和其他学科的分类分析工具在网上提供。该项目得益于来自施林格基金会等私人来源的重要和值得称赞的支持，这使得研究和培训的开展有了一个世界范围的视角。

9977958Irwin, Wiegmann, and Yeates In a renewal of their productive and ambitious study of the world's therevid flies (some known as stiletto flies), presently with 4,000 or so described species, the team of Michael Irwin (University of Illinois), Brian Wiegmann (North Carolina State University), and David Yeates (University of Queensland, Australia) continues a program of taxonomic monography, student training, and computer databasing, toward the goal of a comprehensive understanding of the biological diversity, evolution, and biogeography of this primitive group of dipteran insects. This is one of three active projects on dipteran diversity supported through the PEET activity, Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy. Museum collections of these insects, not especially abundant because of the rarity of adults, have been greatly augmented through field expeditions in several countries, with an emphasis on collecting immature stages to acquire a complete description of life cycles from larvae to adults of as many species as possible. Larvae of these flies usually live belowground, and feed upon other insects or soil organisms; their predaceous habits are thought to have ecological effects in the plant-root zone, but unreliable taxonomic identification impedes the study of these and other interesting biological problems. Databasing of the specimens now encompasses over 60,000 collections, and continues with new material from understudied arid regions in Australasia, India, and South America. The acquisition of taxonomically informative morphological characters, including micro-morphological features observed by scanning electron microscopy, will be augmented with molecular-systematic analyses of nuclear and mitochondrial genes, to construct a framework phylogeny for the generic and tribal classification of the group. Clades with a manageable number of species then become the focus of intensive revisionary and monographic analysis, with research products including interactive identification keys, images and illustrations, geographic distribution maps, and nomenclators of valid scientific names and taxonomic synonyms. Training of specialists in the classification, biology, and evolution of diptera continues during the renewal project, and involves students at undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels. As well, retired taxonomic specialists in Denmark and Russia have been welcomed onto the team, and will help mentor students in the study of particular regional groups of therevids. Database development continues on MANDALA, the specimen database created for this project, which has proved useful to several other PEET projects focused on other organisms. Work continues on this, and on related identification software, to make these available over the web as tools for taxonomic analysis in entomology and other disciplines. The project benefits from significant and commendable support from private sources like the Schlinger Foundation, which has made possible a world-wide perspective in the conduct of the research and training.