2B Training. The training component of this PEET is envisioned to contain elements to enhance graduate student comprehension of taxonomy. Thus, students are expected to gain experience in morphological and molecular systematics, in laboratory, computer-based, and field techniques, and in ways to mesh cladistic inference with other aspects of biology, such as behavior and biogeography. This means that a several month rotation into Co-PI Wiegmann's molecular laboratory (NCSU) is planned for each of the students (except the student resident in Wiegmann's lab, who will spend a rotation in either Irwin's or Yeates' lab). Similarly, all students are expected to participate in collecting expeditions, where they can make observations on the life history and ecological settings of the genus they are monographing.

University of Illinois. Mr. Mark Metz and Mr. Kevin Holston will begin their research assistantships in April and May 1996. Gaimari will spend several months in Wiegmann's lab learning molecular techniques (see below), but only after he collects and preserves in 100% ethanol specimens representing most of the species groups of Ozodiceromyia and other genera closely related to Ozodiceromyia. Thus, a timely expedition is being planned for early this summer to the Great Plains, where a number of species groups of Ozodiceromyia are found. Metz and Holston will also be on this trip because members of their specific genera are also abundant there.
North Carolina State University. Ph.D. graduate student Longlong Yang will begin in July 1996. Mr. Yang will enroll in classes offered at NCSU (molecular genetics, molecular evolution, statistics, insect systematics are possible courses). Laboratory training will include DNA extraction, gel electrophoresis, PCR amplification, manual and automated DNA sequencing. Mr. Yang will be encouraged to visit the University of Illinois for a week or two within the first year to gain experience identifying Therevidae at the genus level. Mr. Yang will also enroll in the NCSU Biotechnology summer course series in 1997.
Mr Gaimari, who is preparing a largely morphological revision of Ozodiceromyia at UIUC, will complete a several-month rotation in the Wiegmann laboratory at NCSU. Gaimari will sequence specimens that represent genera forming the genus-group to which Ozodiceromyia belongs (the actual genera will be determined from the morphologically based cladistic analysis of Irwin and Yeates) and specimens representing the several species-groups of Ozodiceromyia. These data will be included in the genus and/or genus-group level molecular systematic component of the project. All lab rotation students will receive molecular laboratory training in PCR, gel electrophoresis, and automated sequencing, as well as training in DNA sequence editing and analysis of molecular character sets using computer packages (STADEN, GCG, GDE, PAUP 3.1.1).
University of Queensland. Mr. Shaun Winterton will complete some core entomology coursework during the first year of his assistantship. He will revise the genus Xestophytus (mss. name) during 1996 and the first half of 1997 in preparation for a monograph of Agapophytus beginning in June 1997.

2C Monographic Treatments

Establishing higher groupings. Irwin's lab is continuing to gather together specimens, enter data into the databases, and make critical observations on therevid morphology. Meanwhile, specimens of critical taxa are being collected during expeditions and preserved in 100% ethanol for molecular studies.

Morphological progress. PI Irwin will continue working with Co-PI Yeates on developing a morphologically based higher classification of the Therevidae. Irwin will search for characters on the thorax, wing, legs, abdomen, and male terminalia over the next several months. These characters will be polarized and scored for all 50 plus genera and five outgroups currently under study. Preliminary trees based on parsimony and maximum-likelihood approaches will be generated using Hennig 86 and PAUP and examined using MacClade. The shortest resulting cladogram(s) will form hypotheses to be tested by the molecular studies.
Molecular progress. Ph.D. student L. Yang and Co-PI Wiegmann will complete tests of phylogenetic utility of 18S and 28S rDNA, and PEPCK and DDC genes for higher level therevid phylogeny. Two of these genes exhibiting appropriate variation, or additional genes if necessary, will be used to begin extended sampling and sequencing of up to 40 genera. Sequence data will be obtained largely through automated DNA sequencing performed at the NCSU DNA sequencing facility. Nucleotide alignments will be performed using alignment software and improved by manual adjustment. Phylogenetic data sets will be constructed from alignments. Nucleotide sequence data sets will be combined and compared with morphology-based data generated by Irwin and Yeates [and their students] to begin genus level phylogenetic analyses. Trees will be constructed using parsimony and maximum-likelihood approaches to infer a preliminary framework of genus-level relationships within the Therevidae.

Genus level revisions.

Status of Ozodiceromyia. Specimens of Ozodiceromyia continue to come in from various insect collections. Collection and loan numbers are immediately printed and attached to the specimens as they arrive. Label data and tentative identification information are keyed into the therevid databases. Only then are the specimens incorporated into the working collection.
The species-group concepts continue to be refined while Gaimari continues to sort specimens to species-group and to species. Within each species-group, the morpho-species are also being sorted before considering the genitalic differences that will help define the species. These genitalic differences will then be used to more accurately place the specimens into species-groups. Once the species-groups are better defined via genitalic and external morphological features, a key to the species-groups will be developed and tested, and the monophyletic nature of each will be considered. The species-groups will each be monographed separately and considered in relation to the other species-groups to develop a phylogenetic classification of the genus.
Status of other genera. Brachylinga, the second largest and perhaps the most complicated genus in North America, has been assigned to graduate student Metz. He will begin gathering specimens from museums and collections in the Americas shortly after he arrives on April 1. Monographing the genus Thereva will most likely be undertaken by graduate student Holston. He will work in close concert with Dr. Leif Lyneborg, Copenhagen, who has extensive notes on the Palaearctic members of this very large genus and has expressed an eagerness to collaborate. PI Irwin will finish his monograph of the genus Pherocera; he will also undertake a revision of the genus Cyclotelus (he has studied many of the types of this largely Neotropical genus). Collaborator Webb, working with PI Irwin, will continue to monograph the less speciose genera of North American therevids. They have nearly completed a revision of Pandiverilia, Viriliricta, and Dichoglena. Completion of this monograph is awaiting a more comprehensive set of characters, something that PI Irwin and Co-PI Yeates are developing.
Concurrently, work is proceeding in Australia and the South Pacific, areas of great radiation of the family. That region is to be the next target for a comprehensive monograph, hopefully during the second five-year cycle of the grant. PI Irwin has begun to put together a manuscript on the Therevidae of New Caledonia, an area of extreme endemism containing what appear to be the most primitive extant members of the Therevinae. These are closely allied with therevids of Australia. In collaboration with Co-PI Yeates, Mr. Greg Daniels of the Department of Entomology, University of Queensland, will begin a revision of the genus Bonjeania. When the research assistantship to the University of Queensland is filled, that student will work on the very complex and speciose genus Agapophytus.

2D Expeditions to Increase the Knowledge Base of Therevidae

Great Plains of North America. A short expedition is planned for the New Mexico/Utah area to gather specimens to preserve in 100% ethanol for molecular studies and to increase the holdings of species of Ozodiceromyia, Brachylinga, and Thereva that are poorly represented in museum collections.
Southern Africa and Madagascar. A large-scale, two-month expedition is being planned for late 1996. We are still in the early phases of planning, but the following specific localities will likely be included: Kalahari Desert, Namib Desert, Namaqualand (western Cape Province of South Africa), Ndumu (north eastern Natal Province of South Africa), and the drier zones of Madagascar. This expedition will likely involve rotations of Co-PIs and students during its various phases.

 

Previous Page

Other NSF Peet Reports