9316698 Asquith This award will support the travel expenses for Dr. Adam Asquith, of the B. P. Bishop Museum Department of Entomology in Honolulu, to enable him to make one visit each year over the next three years, to conduct cooperative research with Dr. Gerasimos Cassis of the Department of Entomology at the Australian Museum in Sydney. The collaborative work will focus on the Miridae bugs from the Indo-Pacific Region. The Miridae is the largest family of Heteroptera, containing over a third of all described species in this order. The Miridae fauna of the east Indo-Pacific biogeographical area, including Australia and Hawaii, remains largely unknown. This research will initiate a systematic review of the tribe Orthotylini for this region. The work will provide descriptions and identification keys for the fauna, hypotheses of evolutionary relationships, tests of existing biogeographic models of the area, and propose new hypotheses for Pacific Island biogeography. The collaborators will directly benefit by combining the facilities and resources of the two largest systematic entomology research collections in the Indo-Pacific, the Australian Museum and the B. P. Bishop Museum. Support for Dr. Cassis to visit Hawaii is provided through the Australian Department of Industry, Technology and Regional Development.
