COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: THE PHYLOGENY AND EVOLUTION OF WORLD TACHINIDAE (DIPTERA)

速蝇科包含近10,000种已描述的有益寄生蝇。作为其他昆虫，特别是食草动物的天敌，速虫是自然和农业生态系统中宿主种群的重要调节者。它们有助于自然控制许多害虫，并已有效地用于生物防治入侵害虫。尽管它们具有多样性和生态重要性，但我们对它们与宿主的相互作用以及它们如何随着时间的推移而发展知之甚少。石芋豆属植物的分类困难和缺乏健全的分类，阻碍了其基础研究和应用研究。本项目的目标是利用分子和传统方法重建速蝇群之间的关系，然后利用这些结果建立一个稳定的分类，并了解寄主利用模式和其他生活史特征。另一个关键目标是向研究人员和从业人员广泛分发有关速虫的分类和生物学信息。速蝇科是除胡蜂外最重要的寄生性昆虫类群。了解它们的历史和可靠的分类基础设施是了解它们作为敌人的角色、它们多样化攻击策略的演变以及它们迅速而猖獗的多样化的原因所必需的。这样的认识可以指导在农业和森林系统中选择最有效的速虫素生物防治剂，并限制对非目标的潜在负面影响。它还将为生物学中的广泛问题提供信息，如生物地理学、生态专业化和适应性多样化的原因。

The family Tachinidae contains nearly 10,000 described species of beneficial parasitic flies. As enemies of other insects, particularly herbivores, tachinids are important regulators of host populations in natural and agricultural ecosystems. They help in the natural control of numerous pest insects and have been effectively used in biological control of invasive pests. Despite their diversity and ecological importance, we know little about their interactions with hosts and how these have developed over time. The taxonomic difficulty and lack of a robust classification of tachinids has hindered both basic and applied research. The goals of this project are to reconstruct relationships among groups of tachinid flies using molecular and traditional methods and then use these results to produce a stable classification and to understand patterns of host-use and other life history traits. Another key goal is to broadly distribute taxonomic and biological information on tachinids to researchers and practitioners. Tachinidae are the most important group of insect parasitoids outside of the wasps. A sound grasp of their history and a reliable taxonomic infrastructure are necessary to understand their roles as enemies, the evolution of their diverse attack strategies, and the causes of their rapid and rampant diversification. Such an understanding can guide the selection of the most effective tachinid biological control agents in agricultural and forest systems and limit the potential negative impacts upon non-targets. It will also inform broad issues in biology such as biogeography, ecological specialization, and the causes of adaptive diversification.