Sarginae phylogeny: diversity of the worldwide genus Hermetia Latreille (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) in Brazil: monophyly, redescription, new species

• Grant number: 18/24237-3
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: February 23, 2019
• End date: March 09, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Taxonomy of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Dalton de Souza Amorim
• Grantee: Dalton de Souza Amorim
• Visiting researcher: Martin Hauser
• Visiting researcher institution: California Department of Food and Agriculture, United States
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The family Stratiomyidae is the most speciose in the Stratiomyiomorpha, with 367 genera and about 2,800 described species from all regions. The monophyly of Stratiomyiomorpha and Stratiomyidae is well corroborated. There are hypotheses for the relationships between the 12 subfamilies of Stratiomyidae, but this is still a largely pending issue. Relationships between genera have been proposed only for Beridinae, Parhadrestiinae and (nearly finished) Sarginae. Hermetiinae is a small subfamily with six genera and 93 species in the world, 82 of which belong to the worldwide genus Hermetia, the main challenge in the subfamily. There are few recent taxonomic studies, with identification keys, photographs and illustrations available for the genus. There are 52 species known for the Neotropical region (22 from Brazil), but they were described long ago, based on scarce material and a limited number of localities. One-third of which described between 1930 and 1970, and ever since, no species have been described from the Neotropics. Material examined in different collections show that the number of species to be described from the genus is at least the same as the number of presently known species. This project intends to bring the most important specialist in the world for the systematics of Stratiomyidae to collaborate on a revision of the genus. We intend to: (1) revise the genus Hermetia based on material of different parts from Brazil and other areas in South America, already available in our lab, redescribing known species, describing new species, and properly describing the morphology of the group (Hauser & Fachin, in preparation); (2) to study the distribution of the species in Brazil considering the patterns recognized by Amorim & Santos (2018) (Fachin, Amorim & Hauser, in preparation); (3) have a seminar on the systematics of Diptera of Dr. Hauser in the Entomology and Comparative Biology Grad Programs; (4) move ahead with the preparation of the chapter of Stratiomyidae for the Manual of South American Diptera (Fachin & Hauser, in preparation); and (5) finish the manuscript with the phylogenetic analysis of the Sarginae, result of the PhD thesis of Diego A. Fachin (Fachin, Hauser & Amorim, in preparation). (AU)