Irwin, Wiegmann, and Yeates In a renewal of their productive and ambitious study of the world's therevid flies (some known as stiletto flies), presently with 4,000 or so described species, the team of Michael Irwin (University of Illinois), Brian Wiegmann (North Carolina State University), and David Yeates (University of Queensland, Australia) continues a program of taxonomic monography, student training, and computer databasing, toward the goal of a comprehensive understanding of the biological diversity, evolution, and biogeography of this primitive group of dipteran insects. This is one of three active projects on dipteran diversity supported through the PEET activity, Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy. Museum collections of these insects, not especially abundant because of the rarity of adults, have been greatly augmented through field expeditions in several countries, with an emphasis on collecting immature stages to acquire a complete description of life cycles from larvae to adults of as many species as possible. Larvae of these flies usually live belowground, and feed upon other insects or soil organisms; their predaceous habits are thought to have ecological effects in the plant-root zone, but unreliable taxonomic identification impedes the study of these and other interesting biological problems. Databasing of the specimens now encompasses over 60,000 collections, and continues with new material from understudied arid regions in Australasia, India, and South America. The acquisition of taxonomically informative morphological characters, including micro-morphological features observed by scanning electron microscopy, will be augmented with molecular-systematic analyses of nuclear and mitochondrial genes, to construct a framework phylogeny for the generic and tribal classification of the group. Clades with a manageable number of species then become the focus of intensive revisionary and monographic analysis, with research products including interactive identification keys, images and illustrations, geographic distribution maps, and nomenclators of valid scientific names and taxonomic synonyms. Training of specialists in the classification, biology, and evolution of diptera continues during the renewal project, and involves students at undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels. As well, retired taxonomic specialists in Denmark and Russia have been welcomed onto the team, and will help mentor students in the study of particular regional groups of therevids. Database development continues on MANDALA, the specimen database created for this project, which has proved useful to several other PEET projects focused on other organisms. Work continues on this, and on related identification software, to make these available over the web as tools for taxonomic analysis in entomology and other disciplines. The project benefits from significant and commendable support from private sources like the Schlinger Foundation, which has made possible a world-wide perspective in the conduct of the research and training.
