Revisionary systematics of Nerioidea and Sphaeroceroidea (Diptera)

双翅目可以说是最大的生物目，就其对人类健康和经济的影响而言，肯定是最重要的高等分类单元。尽管在过去的十年中，双翅目分类学取得了巨大的进步，正如最近的双翅目手册（中美洲双翅目手册、非洲热带双翅目手册）所概括的那样，双翅目的许多属、亚科甚至科仍未得到充分的定义，大多数蝇种仍有待描述。解决地球生物多样性的这一重要部分需要足够的标本收集；只有这样才能描述和诊断有用的单系群。经过数十年的实地考察和精心的标本管理，圭尔夫大学昆虫收藏馆现在收藏了超过100万份双翅目标本，其中大部分属于大型超科奈总科和球形总科。因此，我们定位于审查和纠正这些超家族的高级分类，同时识别和彻底修改重要的分支或单系亚群。到目前为止，我和我的学生已经发现并正式描述了一千多个新种和几个更高的分类群，但要把这些完全不同的组成部分结合起来，形成一个系统发育和多样性的连贯图景，并对这些主要的苍蝇分支进行现代分类，还有很多工作要做。我们无与伦比的标本收集和已经完成的分类学基础的结合，为一个团队提供了一个良好的平台，目前包括外部合作者和博士生，他们正在研究微小动物总目和球形动物总目的不同亚群，对这些分类群的主要部分进行专著。micropezooidea和Sphaeroceroidea都提供了足够的结构复杂性来比较形态学，从而为描述、详细说明的诊断和系统发育假设提供了基础。由形态学分析产生的物种和主要分支概念将用细胞色素氧化酶1序列（“条形码”）进行测试，然后用作更广泛整合的分子/形态系统发育的基础。虽然我们的工作的基础是仔细的比较形态学，强调复杂的内部特征系统，分子，生态和形态数据将仔细比较和整合，结果在动物地理学和保护生物学的背景下进行。

The order Diptera is arguably the largest order of living things and is certainly the most important higher taxon in terms of its impact on human health and economy. Despite tremendous advances in Diptera taxonomy over the past decade, as encapsulated in the recent Diptera Manuals (Manual of Central American Diptera, Manual of Afrotropical Diptera), many of the genera, subfamilies and even families of Diptera remain to be adequately defined and most fly species remain to be described. Resolution of this important portion of the planet's biodiversity requires adequate specimen collections; only then can useful monophyletic groups be described and diagnosed. As a result of decades of directed fieldwork and careful specimen curation the University of Guelph Insect Collection now houses over a million Diptera specimens, mostly in the large superfamilies Nerioidea and Sphaeroceroidea. We are thus positioned to review and correct the higher classification of these superfamilies, while identifying and thoroughly revising significant clades or monophyletic subgroups. My students and I have so far discovered and formally described over a thousand new species and several higher taxa, but much remains to be done to combine these disparate components into a cohesive picture of phylogeny and diversity, and to produce a modern classification of these major fly clades. The combination of our unparalleled specimen collection and the taxonomic foundation already completed has provided a sound platform for a team, currently including external collaborators and doctoral students working on different subgroups of the Micropezoidea and Sphaeroceroidea, to monograph major parts of these taxa. Both Micropezoidea and Sphaeroceroidea offer enough structural complexity for comparative morphology to provide the basis for descriptions, thoroughly illustrated diagnoses and phylogenetic hypotheses. Species and major clade concepts generated by morphological analyses will be tested with cytochrome oxidase one sequences (“barcodes”) and then used as the basis for the development of more broadly integrated molecular/morphological phylogenies. Although the basis of our work is careful comparative morphology with an emphasis on complex internal character systems, molecular, ecological and morphological data will be carefully compared and integrated, with the results cast in contexts of zoogeography and conservation biology.