Objectives: Syrphidae, commonly called hover or flower flies, is one of the most diverse families of Diptera very attractive for citizen-scientists. Phylogenetic relationships among its main subfamilies and genera are still not totally understood; especially large genera such as Allobaccha Curran and Asarkina Macquart. This project aims to review both genera in order to describe the new species using new publishing tools, as well as to study their phylogenetic placement among other Syrphidae with the development of a workflow for Ultra-Conserved Elements or Anchored Hybrid Enrichment technique.
Expected Results: New species descriptions and identification tools. Genus–level phylogenetic schemes to understand the evolution of these two taxa. Better knowledge of the larval feeding modes to be applied in biological control. High resolution images and identification tools publicly available, for citizen science in particular. Deeper understanding of the current species distributions.
Researching student: Trevor Burt