Systematics and ecology of diptera

名字是生物多样性的货币。知道一个有机体的名称不仅可以让人识别它，而且还可以获得有关该有机体的所有其他知识。虽然我们与数百万种昆虫共享地球，但这些物种中只有一小部分有科学名称，我们有合理的生态和进化知识的物种比例微乎其微。我的研究计划的主要目标是苍蝇（双翅目）的系统学，地球上四个最大的昆虫订单之一，和加拿大的昆虫物种最丰富的群体。我们描述了一系列双翅目科的新物种，并提供了识别工具，使其他工作人员能够在标本上附加名称。然而，物种的描述是一个开始，而不是结束。系统的知识是我的计划的其他主要焦点的基础。一旦物种是已知的，重建它们的系统发育关系提供了一个预测框架，了解这些物种的其他性状的演变。我将产生系统发育假说的两个大的，广泛的部落草蝇（绿蝇科），占据了广泛的生态角色，为了框架的起源和进化的假设，生态多样性。识别苍蝇的能力，以物种水平也给了更大的分辨率在生态研究。我们发现，高等双翅目在表面上同质的栖息地中非常多样化，但这些组合可以由不同地点的物种组成。我将通过研究绿蝇和相关双翅目在栖息地斑块中的扩散能力和定殖模式，从小型，相似的局部斑块中探索这种模式的潜在原因（鸟巢）通过栖息地碎片（泥炭地，老的田间样方）达到大陆尺度（北美的东西向样带），以测试在一个尺度上明显的模式是否适用于其他尺度，并确定系统发育历史，生态相似性，和中性过程有助于果蝇物种组合的组装。

Names are the currency of biodiversity. Knowing the name of an organism not only allows one to identify it, but provides access to all other knowledge about that organism. Although we share the planet with millions of species of insects, only a fraction of those species has scientific names, and the percentage of species for which we have reasonable ecological and evolutionary knowledge is vanishingly small. The primary objective of my research program is the systematics of flies (Diptera), one of the four largest insect orders on Earth, and Canada's most species-rich group of insects. We describe new species in a range of Diptera families and provide identification tools that allow other workers to attach names to specimens.The description of species is, however, a beginning, not an end. Systematic knowledge is the foundation for the other primary foci of my program. Once species are known, reconstructing their phylogenetic relationships provides a predictive framework for understanding the evolution of other traits of those species. I will generate phylogenetic hypotheses on two large, widespread tribes of grass flies (Chloropidae) that occupy a broad range of ecological roles, in order to frame hypotheses on the origins and evolution of that ecological diversity.The ability to identify flies to the species level also gives greater resolution in ecological studies. We have found that higher Diptera are very diverse in apparently homogeneous habitats, but those assemblages can be made up of very different sets of species from site to site. I will explore the underlying reasons for this pattern by studying the dispersal ability and colonization patterns of chloropid flies and related Diptera in habitat patches at multiple scales from small, similar, local patches (bird nests) through habitat fragments (peatlands, old field quadrats) up to continental scales (an east-west transect in North America) to test whether patterns apparent at one scale apply at other scales, and to determine to what extent phylogenetic history, ecological similarity, and neutral processes contribute to the assembly of species assemblages of flies.