CANPOLIN– Current Canadian Research on Diptera Pollinators Jeffrey H. Skevington, Stephen A. Marshall Chrysomya megacephala S. Nelson, Bugguide
CANPOLIN– Current
Canadian Research on
Diptera Pollinators
Jeffrey H. Skevington, Stephen A. Marshall
Chrysomya megacephala
S. Nelson, Bugguide
Diptera Pollinators
• Many groups of pollinator flies
• Most projects on Syrphidae
• Also Calliphoridae, Conopidae, Bombyliidae
• Canadian Syrphidae collections partly databased
• 12000 images of flies
available for key
building
Flower Fly keys - CJAI
• Miranda, Young, Locke, Skevington, Marshall & Thompson
• Starting with a generic key
• Not necessarily dichotomous
• Richly illustrated
• To be followed by modular species keys
• Will ultimately enable ID of all Nearctic species via microscope
Review of New World Sericomyia
• Large, distinctive flies
• Commonly caught on
flowers
• Last key by Curran (1937)
is obsolete
• Colour plates of all species
• Maps, new key, phylogeny,
new species
• Submitted to The Canadian
Entomologist (Skevington
& Thompson)
• Young, Marshall & Skevington
• Male taxonomy robust, but key is difficult to use (75 species)
• Females cannot be identified
• Associating males & females with morphology & COI
• Will attempt to find characters for females and provide key
• Will also provide online key to both sexes in an attempt to make group more accessible
Review of NearcticPlatycheirus
• Locke, Skevington & Marshall
• 10 valid NE species currently
• Two conflicting sets of species concepts
• Testing these with COI and ITS2 data
• Many cryptic species in the venustus group
• 31 species
• Morphological characters subtle
Revision of New World Dasysyrphus
• Miranda, Marshall & Skevington
• Nearly 400 species
• Genus not monophyletic
• Explore phylogeny of species groups with multiple genes and morphology
• Propose new classification
• Revise species groups one by one (starting with tristis group)
Revision of New World Ocyptamus
• Skevington and Sommaggio
• 23 Nearctic names, 13 valid species, 2 new species
• Added new morphological characters and molecular data
• Checked all types
• Completed a (hopefully) workable key
Revision of Nearctic
Chrysotoxum
Blow Fly key
• Published in CJAI
• Includes key to
subfamilies,
genera and
species of 3
subfamilies
• Includes eastern
taxa only
Pollenia review
• All introduced species
• Important pollinators,
particularly in early spring
• Earthworm predators
• Unknown impact on native
pollinators
Pollenia sp. C. Eiseman, Bugguide
Pollenia sp. M Erbland, Bugguide
Other Fly Families
• Pollinators as well as bee
parasitoids
• Several publications on
phylogeny and hilltopping
• Planned key to eastern
species in CJAI
Conopidae
Bombyliidae
• Kits & Marshall published key
to eastern species in CJAI
Field guide to Syrphidae
of NE North America
• Working on this for 3 years
• 401 species
• Using best models from published field guides
• Colour photos, maps, and brief notes on each species
• Preliminary pages on the web (www.canacoll.org) for feedback
Databasing Syrphidae
• Inventory of CNC Diptera complete
• 34,771 Nearctic Syrphidae databased at CNC (~25% of Nearctic specimens)
• 2,377 (all) specimens databased at University of Alberta
• Part of collection databased
at Univ. of Guelph
• 10,216 specimens
databased at ROME
• Ongoing work at Univ.
of Manitoba and in
Nova Scotia collections
Databasing
• Database used for most of the typical things:
– Producing material examined lists
– Exploring phenology
– Examining geographical patterns
– Linkage of specimens with photos, tissue collection, molecular data, etc. (vouchering)
• Planning to work with Kerr lab (WG7) to produce predictive maps of current distribution and species distribution change over time
Flower Fly
Assessments
• Preparation of Rankings for
all Syrphidae to highlight
species at risk
• For all (~550) Canadian
species
• Extracting data from
databasing effort
Ecology and
conservation of
Eristalis brousii
• Gone from most of eastern North America
• Declined rapidly with advance of E. arbustorum
• Last record in PA 1895, last in MA 1898 (n = 332)
• Disappearance of E. brousii linked to hybridization
• mtDNA replaced by selective sweeps?
• In the north, E. brousii is clinging to existence in coastal barrens
• Climate change may threaten this last stronghold
• Efforts to conserve E. brousiishould likely focus on the far northern edge of its range and in montane habitats above the elevational range of E. arbustorum
Summary
Building a COI database
• Will remove borders
from taxonomy
• Will allow identification of
all life stages and
association of sexes
• Useful tool to assist with
revisionary systematics
• Provides an additional
dataset for phylogenetic
analyses
Pollinator Identification Course
• First course held at CNC in 2010
• Second course anticipated in 2012
• 5 days for bees
• 5 days for syrphids
Work in Urban Ecosystems• Urban pollinators and green
corridors
• Ottawa outreach & zoning
laws
• Encouraging the use of native
plants
• Extend natural areas and
create more corridors