This project will investigate the systematics of South American water beetles (Hydradephaga), including diving beetles, burrowing water beetles, and whirligig beetles. Diving beetles are remarkable for their size and intricate color patterns. They also exhibit interesting differences between males and females; males have adhesive disks on their bodies that let them stick to the females during mating, whereas females have grooves that allow them to resist mating. This project will determine how many species there are in this group of beetles, and how they are related to each other. The project will test whether changes in male adhesive disks are mirrored by corresponding changes in the grooves on the females. DNA sequences will also be used to determine which larvae will grow in to which adults. One product of this work will be an interactive, fully illustrated, on-line identification key for the water beetles of the Neotropics.
This project will provide training in monographic and revisionary systematics for one Ph.D. student, two master's students, and four undergraduates, the latter for at least two years each. Summer workshops will be provided for local-area high-school teachers so they may take knowledge of systematics back to their classrooms. The public school system in Albuquerque and the University of New Mexico are significant minority-serving institutions with Hispanics and Native Americans as major constituents. In addition, two university courses will be developed, one of which will be offered during the summer term, so that students can be taken to South America to collect insects relevant to the revisionary part of the proposed research. These collections will be processed by the students and deposited at the Museum of Southwestern Biology at UNM.
