Systematics, evolution and larval morphology of world hydradephaga (coleoptera)

了解昆虫的所有生活阶段对生态和环境管理至关重要。然而，与成虫相比，与未成熟昆虫的接触相对较少，但幼虫无疑比成虫对农作物和其他人类珍视的材料造成更直接的伤害。但这是正确的，因为大多数取食是在幼虫阶段完成的，而成虫主要参与传播和繁殖。本课题的研究重点是水生甲虫幼虫形态的研究。人们之所以重视这些昆虫，是因为它们种类繁多，种类繁多，并带来了许多具有挑战性的分类问题。尽管水甲虫是淡水中最常见的昆虫之一，但全世界对它们的幼虫形态了解很少。对许多人来说，幼虫的识别通常是一个经常性且持续的问题，因为可用于完成这一任务的文献广泛分散，仅限于某些群体，过时的，难以使用或根本不存在。这种情况一直是生态工作的障碍。正因为如此，我开发了一个框架，这便于物种之间的比较。我的分析系统侧重于体感受器(刚毛和毛孔)的研究。我证明了刚毛和毛孔的特征对于分类群之间的系统学关系的诊断和研究都是有用和重要的。对幼虫特征的研究应允许建立更全面的分类。大多数昆虫组的分类仅基于成虫阶段的研究。但在出版后，这些分类很少被测试或评估。检验这些初步分类的一种方法是研究幼虫的形态。幼虫处于不同的选择压力下，因此表现出相当不同的特征。我研究的一个长期目标是通过将来自幼虫的特征与包括成虫和分子特征在内的其他数据集相结合来产生更严格和稳定的分类。

Understanding of all life stages of insects is of critical importance to ecological and environmental management.  However, encounters with immature insects are relatively uncommon compared with adults, yet larvae undoubtedly cause more direct injury to crops and other materials valued by human than do adults.  This is true because most feeding is done in the larval stage whereas adults are primarily involved in dispersal and reproduction. My research emphasizes the study of larval morphology of aquatic beetles. Emphasis is placed on these insects because they are abundant, diverse and provide many challenging taxonomic problems.  Although water beetles are among the most common insect inhabitants of freshwaters, knowledge of their larval morphology is scanty throughout the World.  The identification of larvae is usually a regular and continuing problem for many because the literature available to accomplish this is widely scattered, limited to certain groups, outdated, difficult to use or non-existent.  This situation has been an obstacle to ecological work.  Because of this, I developed a framework, that facilitates comparison among species.  My system of analysis focuses on study of body sensilla (setae and pores).  I demonstrated that the characteristics of setae and pores are useful and important both for diagnoses and study of the genealogical (= phylogenetic) relationships among taxa. Study of larval features should allow more comprehensive classifications to be constructed.  Most classifications of groups of insects are based on study of adult stages only.  Subsequent to publication, these classifications are rarely tested or evaluated.  A way to test these preliminary classifications is to study the larval morphology.  Larvae are under differing selection pressures and therefore show quite different features. A long-term goal of my research is to produce a more rigorous and stable classification by combining characters from larvae with other data sets including adult and molecular characters.