| Grant number: | 10/52314-0 |
| Support type: | BIOTA-FAPESP Program - Regular Research Grants |
| Duration: | March 01, 2011 - February 28, 2014 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Zoology - Taxonomy of Recent Groups |
| Cooperation agreement: | CNPq - SISBIOTA-Brazil |
| Principal researcher: | Carlos José Einicker Lamas |
| Grantee: | Carlos José Einicker Lamas |
| Home Institution: | Museu de Zoologia (MZ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil |
Abstract
The true flies (Diptera) are one of the four-megadiverse orders of insects, with more than 120.000 extant species, immediately familiar because they are ubiquitous and cosmopolitan, and they have had tremendous impacts on human civilization. They transmit important diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever, leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness, to humans and animals. Flies are among the most abundant arthropods found in biodiversity surveys and have a widevariety of feeding strategies. The menu of fly diets comprises nearly the complete insect smorgasbord: blood feeders, endo- and ectoparasites of vertebrates, gall makers, larval and adult predators, leaf miners, parasitoids, pollinators, saprophages, and wood borers. Magnifying this ecological diversity, Diptera have a complex holometabolous life cycle, and their larvae (maggots) and adults have entirely different anatomy and behavior, separate ecological requirements, and occupy different niches. The SISBIOTA-BRASIL is a three-year multimillion-dollar research program of the Brazilian government to document plants and animals in ndangered/understudied areas and biomes in Brazil. Even in the most studied areas in Brazil, distributional patterns of invertebrates and plants are insufficiently known and the historical events that generated those patterns are even more poorly known. This deficiency brings implications and impediments for conservation policies and for the understanding of evolutionary processes. Conservation decisions are largely dependent upon precise knowledge of the taxonomic and geographic distribution of species. Inside this premise and concerning, the team proposed an ambitious research project to study the Diptera of Central Brazilian areas, in the States of Rondônia, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, which are characterized by four important biomes of the South American continent: Amazon Forest, Cerrado (Brazilian Savannah), Pantanal and Chaco. Besides the ecological relevance, those areas historically lacks satisfactory entomological surveys; therefore, they are much underrepresented in the main collections, and also are being exponentially destroyed by the enlargement of the livestock and agricultural areas. This project involves 24 researchers from 15 different Brazilian institutions, and gathers 36 graduate and undergraduate students and 10 technicians. The project scope comprehends taxonomic, phylogenetic and biogeographical aspects of the studied families. So far, the team have analyzed nearly 300,000 specimens of Diptera, which are being collected with standardized methods along the sampled areas. (AU)
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