Dr. Wojciech Pulawski of the California Academy of Sciences proposes to continue his career-long study of the sphecid wasps. The genus Gastrosericus occurs across tropical Asia and Africa but has never been thoroughly studied using a consistent and modern approach. The habitat occupied by these wasps is continually diminishing, and careful study must be accomplished before they are extinct. Dr. Pulawski proposes to collect new representative samples of the genus in Thailand, Pakistan, and Africa, to describe their morphology, behavior, and ecological habits, and to use these data to reconstruct their evolutionary and biogeographic history. The proposed work has implications beyond the confines of a single genus of wasp. Dr. Pulawski is amassing a unique data resource, from which he will eventually be able to distill the evolutionary pattern of an important and widespread tropical group. This history can then be compared to evolutionary and biogeographic histories of other groups (both wasp and non-wasp), in order to test hypotheses of causal processes.
