Mexican fruit flies are just
one of the species in the order Diptera, one of the four largest groups of
living organisms on Earth. Click the image for more information about
it. |
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Database Documents Names for More Than 150,000
Diptera Species
By Ann Perry August 29,
2008
Distinguishing between insect pests and partners starts with an
ironclad identification. So Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) entomologist
Chris
Thompson headed up efforts to accurately identify and name almost 157,000
flies, gnats, maggots, midges, mosquitoes and related species in the order
Diptera.
Diptera is one of the four largest groups of living organisms on
Earth, and its members are critical components in virtually all non-marine
ecosystems. Carl Linnaeus, who devised the scientific classification system
still in use today, compiled the first index of Diptera species names in 1758.
But even though an average of 800 new Diptera names are proposed every year,
the nomenclature has not been comprehensively updated since 1805.
Thompson works at the
ARS
Systematic Entomology Laboratory in Washington, D.C. For this research, he
partnered with Neal Evenhuis, an entomologist at the
Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii;
Thomas Pape, an entomologist at the Natural History Museum of Denmark;
and Adrian Pont, an entomologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
in Oxford, England.
The group assembled the tenth edition of the Biosystematic Database of
World Diptera (BDWD). This massive index contains nomenclature data for 156,599
living and extinct Diptera species in 154 families and 11,671
generaaround 10 percent of the known biodiversity in the world today.
The BDWD, which is available at www.diptera.org, has two components. The
Nomenclator allows users to check names, confirm species status, and obtain
information about type, family classification and sources for all names in the
collection. The Species database is being designed to answer queries about
different species, including their distribution, biological associates and
economic importance.
The BDWD provides a framework for organizing and integrating current
and future data that is accessible by researchers around the globe. Scientists
can obtain a wealth of information that will help them fine-tune Dipteras
evolutionary tree and track the migration, increase and decline of
economically-important Diptera species worldwide.
The team presented their research at the 20th International Congress
of Zoology in Paris, France, in August.
ARS is a scientific research agency of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.