Comparative morphological study and cladistic analysis of Phasiinae (Diptera: Tachinidae) based on morphological characters

• Grant number: 17/21357-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: March 05, 2018
• End date: June 11, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Morphology of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Silvio Shigueo Nihei
• Grantee: Rodrigo de Vilhena Perez Dios
• Supervisor: Torsten Dikow
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 16/12441-0 - Comparative morphological study and cladistic analysis of Phasiinae (Diptera: Tachinidae) based on morphological characters, BP.DR

Abstract

The subfamily Phasiinae was historically grouped based on the fact that their species are mostly parasitoids of the suborder Heteroptera, and they were recently grouped based on male terminalia. Nowadays there are included 12 tribes in Phasiinae, totalizing 105 genera and 639 species, distributed in all biogeographical regions. Both the only Tachinidae morphological phylogeny and the only molecular phylogeny for the subfamily corroborates with the Phasiinae monophyly. However, more and better studies are required for the group, and there are no cladistics analysis using morphological data. The inclusion of Neotropical taxa and a wider range of global genera in the analysis are necessary. A new and exhaustive phylogenetic hypothesis, with a wider taxa sampling can contribute with new phylogenetic and taxonomic studies, besides allowing host-parasite coevolution studies. A new phylogenetic relationship for Phasiinae genera and tribes will be proposed, as well testing the monophyly of the subfamily and its tribes. The project will contribute for a better understanding of Phasiine internal relationships and will propose a new tribal classification system. (AU)