ARTS: SG: Diversity, taxonomy, and systematics of flightless sand dune weevils, Trigonoscuta, in western North America

检测物种之间的差异(也称为物种界定)是生物学的基本领域之一，因为物种是规划、管理和保护生物多样性的基本单位。正确界定物种具有深远的后果；例如，认识到农业害虫物种对于有效管理和避免破坏性的经济后果是必要的。确定种群是否属于濒危物种对于保护规划至关重要，并对生物多样性产生长期影响。本研究以原产于美国和墨西哥的沙漠象鼻虫为模式系统。鉴于其作为有害生物的经济重要性，对其进行高质量的物种划分研究尤为重要。划界的过程涉及整合来自不同来源的数据，如遗传学和外部特征，这是一个耗时和细致的过程。此外，传统的分类学方法往往忽略了对正确划界至关重要的生态和自然历史信息。这项研究将通过整合物候信息来改进物种划定过程，物候信息是繁殖季节长度等活动的时间、使用地理信息系统收集的新环境数据、形态特征和遗传数据。这项研究还将介绍使用新开发的软件进行物种划界研究自动化的新方法。物候学、生物地理学和环境如何相交是划定物种边界的关键。生物地理和环境障碍受到的关注最多，然而，在不时出现季节性的生境(例如沙漠或热带落叶林)，物候学可能也同样重要。该项目将利用为每个物种或假定物种的物候量身定做的新的定制环境层来整合这些数据源。这些信息将用于评估各种划界方法的结果。此外，通过获取基因组数据，这项工作将检验这样一个假设，即历史地质过程(特别是海平面变化)解释了目前的多样性和分布。此外，这项研究将推动使用综合方法来快速描述物种，包括进一步开发基于R的物种描述软件，通过该软件，分类研究可以快速和统一地格式化。这项研究还将通过使用系统发育分析提供预测性分类。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Detecting how species differ from each other (also known as species delimitation) is one of the foundational areas of biology, because species are fundamental units of biodiversity in planning, management, and conservation. Correctly delimiting species has far-reaching consequences; for example, recognizing agricultural pest species is necessary for effective management and avoiding damaging economic consequences. Determining whether populations belong to an endangered species is crucial for conservation planning and has long-lasting impacts on biodiversity. This research focuses on desert weevils, native to the U.S. and Mexico, as the model system. High-quality species delimitation research on weevils is particularly important given their economic importance as pest species. The process of delimitation involves integrating data from diverse sources such as genetics and external characteristics, a time-consuming and meticulous process. Moreover, traditional methods of taxonomy often neglect ecological and natural history information that is vital for correct delimitation. This research will improve the species delimitation process by integrating phenological information, which is the timing of activities such as breeding season length, new environmental data collected using geographical information systems, morphological characteristics, and genetic data. The research will also introduce new methods of automation of species delimitation research using newly developed software. How phenology, biogeography, and environment intersect is of key importance to delimiting species boundaries. Biogeographic and environmental barriers have received the most attention, however in habitats that have punctuated seasonality (e.g., deserts or tropical deciduous forests), phenology is likely to be equally important. This project will integrate across these sources of data utilizing novel custom-built environmental layers, tailored for the phenology of each species or putative species. This information will be used to evaluate the results of various delimitation methods. Further, by accessing genomic data, the work will test the hypothesis that historical geological processes (especially change in sea level) account for present diversity and distribution. Additionally, the research will advance the use of integrative approaches to describe species in a rapid fashion, including further development of R-based software for species descriptions, through which taxonomic studies can be formatted rapidly and uniformly. This research will also provide a predictive classification through use of phylogenetic analyses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.