Origins of New Zealand Cicadas

DEB 00- 89946克里斯汀M.西蒙博士康涅狄格大学的克里斯·西蒙（Chris Simon）及其同事获得了一笔赠款，用于测试有关景观和气候变化对蝉物种形成影响的经典假设。 除了为相关的新西兰（NZ）、澳大利亚（Au）和新喀里多尼亚（NC）的蝉属创建进化树（系谱）外，本项目还将：1）描述未知物种并扩大我们的物种识别声音库; 2）使用新的贝叶斯统计来估计物种形成事件的分子钟日期; 3）为新西兰的蝉和相关的Au NC物种创建“电子领域指南”; 4）培养博士后研究助理。 新西兰蝉的40种（5属）是这项工作的理想选择，因为它们的自然历史和分布得到了很好的研究，它们栖息在几乎所有的新西兰生态系统中，并且它们被假设为与记录良好的地质/气候事件相一致的多样化。这项研究将通过增加一个关键的时间维度来检验地理学假设，这项工作将增进对新近描述的高度多样化的动物群的了解，并有助于了解南太平洋区域的地理学。 它将复活C. A. Fleming和J.S.达格代尔研究新西兰蝉近20年。所有结果将出现在西蒙博士的网站上，蝉中心，包括物种分布图，世界研究人员名单，网络搜索标本数据库，物种和栖息地的照片，关系的系统发育树，和物种描述。 该网站将链接到其他系统学数据库，并将包括一个电子现场指南，新西兰，Au和NC的蝉赠款将培训博士后助理系统学的各个方面，从树的建设，以物种描述。 最后，这项研究将为未来的工作奠定基础，包括：与澳大利亚和NC研究人员合作的形态学和分子的综合分析;修订新西兰昆虫属;昆虫部落和昆虫半翅目的深层次进化树;以及分析性信号进化在物种形成中的作用。

DEB 00-89946Christine M. SimonDr. Chris Simon and colleagues at the University of Connecticut have been awarded a grant to test classical hypotheses concerning the influence of landscape and climate changes on speciation using cicadas. In addition to creating an evolutionary tree (genealogy) for related New Zealand (NZ) Australian (AU) and New Caledonian (NC) cicada genera, this project will: 1) Describe unknown species and enlarge our sound library for species identification; 2) Use new Bayesian statistics to estimate molecular clock dates of speciation events; 3) Create an "electronic field guide" to the cicadas of NZ, and related AU & NC species, and 4) Train a Postdoctoral Research Associate. The 40 species (5 genera) of NZ cicadas are ideal for this work because their natural history and distributions are well studied, they inhabit almost all NZ ecosystems, and they are hypothesized to have diversified in concert with well-documented geological/ climatological events. This research will test biogeographic hypotheses by adding a crucial time dimension.This work will enhance knowledge of a newly described and highly diverse fauna and contribute to the understanding of the biogeography of the Austral-Pacific region. It will resurrect valuable unpublished field notes and taxonomic sketches by C. A. Fleming and J. S. Dugdale who studied NZ cicadas for nearly twenty years. All results will appear on Dr. Simon's website, Cicada Central, including species distribution maps, lists of world researchers, web-searchable specimen databases, photographs of species and habitats, phylogenetic trees of relationships, and species descriptions. This site will link to other systematics databases and will comprise an electronic field guide to the cicadas of NZ, AU, and NC The grant will train a postdoctoral associate in all aspects of systematics from tree building to species description. Finally, this research will create a foundation for future work including: combined analysis of morphology and molecules in collaboration with AUS and NC researchers; revision of the NZ cicada genera; a deep-level evolutionary tree of cicada tribes and of the insect order Hemiptera; and an analysis of the role of sexual signal evolution in speciation.