The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.

This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Kevin C. Holston to work with Dr. Thomas Pape at the Natural History Museum in Stockholm, Sweden on a revision of the European Thereva (Insecta: Diptera: Therevidae), a regional study of stiletto flies.

This project will build on results from worldwide phylogenetic work on Thereva Latreille (Insecta: Diptera: Therevidae) and the revision of the Neartic Thereva species, a revision of the approximately 70 European Thereva species. The goal of the first year is to compile and organize specimen-level data that is fundamental to taxonomic revision of Thereva, whose results will be relevant to interdisciplinary research programs involving the genus. Taxonomic data will be acquired as specimen label data from museum collections and field collections in southern Spain and Greece, with the organization of these data in a relational database that has been in use for research on Thereva since 1966. The goal of the second year is to provide the international science community with the results of this research using printed and electronic methods of dissemination. The results of this fellowship will be reported to broaden our understanding of the European fauna and strengthen the foundation of research programs with an emphasis on the North American and European fauna. In addition, the lack of species-level taxonomic data for Diptera, and many other insect groups, provided via the internet will make the web-based information source for Thereva species a test case project for developing and producing viable internet taxonomic resources for Diptera.

The Swedish Museum of Natural History has a long-standing commitment to support taxonomic research on flies and recent initiatives to develop and promote advances in studies of local and global diversity. Dr. Pape is the Head of Entomology.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Office of International and Integrative Activities (IIA)
Application #
0301853
Program Officer
John Tsapogas
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2003-06-15
Budget End
2005-05-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$136,576
Indirect Cost
Name
Holston Kevin C
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Urbana
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
61801