CANPOLIN– Current

Canadian Research on

Diptera Pollinators

Jeffrey H. Skevington, Stephen A. Marshall

Chrysomya megacephala

S. Nelson, Bugguide

Diptera Pollinators

• Many groups of pollinator flies

• Most projects on Syrphidae

• Also Calliphoridae, Conopidae, Bombyliidae

• Canadian Syrphidae collections partly databased

• 12000 images of flies

available for key

building

Flower Fly keys - CJAI

• Miranda, Young, Locke, Skevington, Marshall & Thompson

• Starting with a generic key

• Not necessarily dichotomous

• Richly illustrated

• To be followed by modular species keys

• Will ultimately enable ID of all Nearctic species via microscope

Review of New World Sericomyia

• Large, distinctive flies

• Commonly caught on

flowers

• Last key by Curran (1937)

is obsolete

• Colour plates of all species

• Maps, new key, phylogeny,

new species

• Submitted to The Canadian

Entomologist (Skevington

& Thompson)

• Young, Marshall & Skevington

• Male taxonomy robust, but key is difficult to use (75 species)

• Females cannot be identified

• Associating males & females with morphology & COI

• Will attempt to find characters for females and provide key

• Will also provide online key to both sexes in an attempt to make group more accessible

Review of NearcticPlatycheirus

• Locke, Skevington & Marshall

• 10 valid NE species currently

• Two conflicting sets of species concepts

• Testing these with COI and ITS2 data

• Many cryptic species in the venustus group

• 31 species

• Morphological characters subtle

Revision of New World Dasysyrphus

• Miranda, Marshall & Skevington

• Nearly 400 species

• Genus not monophyletic

• Explore phylogeny of species groups with multiple genes and morphology

• Propose new classification

• Revise species groups one by one (starting with tristis group)

Revision of New World Ocyptamus

• Skevington and Sommaggio

• 23 Nearctic names, 13 valid species, 2 new species

• Added new morphological characters and molecular data

• Checked all types

• Completed a (hopefully) workable key

Revision of Nearctic

Chrysotoxum

Blow Fly key

• Published in CJAI

• Includes key to

subfamilies,

genera and

species of 3

subfamilies

• Includes eastern

taxa only

Pollenia review

• All introduced species

• Important pollinators,

particularly in early spring

• Earthworm predators

• Unknown impact on native

pollinators

Pollenia sp. C. Eiseman, Bugguide

Pollenia sp. M Erbland, Bugguide

Other Fly Families

• Pollinators as well as bee

parasitoids

• Several publications on

phylogeny and hilltopping

• Planned key to eastern

species in CJAI

Conopidae

Bombyliidae

• Kits & Marshall published key

to eastern species in CJAI

Field guide to Syrphidae

of NE North America

• Working on this for 3 years

• 401 species

• Using best models from published field guides

• Colour photos, maps, and brief notes on each species

• Preliminary pages on the web (www.canacoll.org) for feedback

Page Samples

Databasing Syrphidae

• Inventory of CNC Diptera complete

• 34,771 Nearctic Syrphidae databased at CNC (~25% of Nearctic specimens)

• 2,377 (all) specimens databased at University of Alberta

• Part of collection databased

at Univ. of Guelph

• 10,216 specimens

databased at ROME

• Ongoing work at Univ.

of Manitoba and in

Nova Scotia collections

Databasing

• Database used for most of the typical things:

– Producing material examined lists

– Exploring phenology

– Examining geographical patterns

– Linkage of specimens with photos, tissue collection, molecular data, etc. (vouchering)

• Planning to work with Kerr lab (WG7) to produce predictive maps of current distribution and species distribution change over time

Dasysyrphus venustus complex

Flower Fly

Assessments

• Preparation of Rankings for

all Syrphidae to highlight

species at risk

• For all (~550) Canadian

species

• Extracting data from

databasing effort

Ecology and

conservation of

Eristalis brousii

• Gone from most of eastern North America

• Declined rapidly with advance of E. arbustorum

• Last record in PA 1895, last in MA 1898 (n = 332)

• Disappearance of E. brousii linked to hybridization

• mtDNA replaced by selective sweeps?

• In the north, E. brousii is clinging to existence in coastal barrens

• Climate change may threaten this last stronghold

• Efforts to conserve E. brousiishould likely focus on the far northern edge of its range and in montane habitats above the elevational range of E. arbustorum

Summary

Building a COI database

• Will remove borders

from taxonomy

• Will allow identification of

all life stages and

association of sexes

• Useful tool to assist with

revisionary systematics

• Provides an additional

dataset for phylogenetic

analyses

Pollinator Identification Course

• First course held at CNC in 2010

• Second course anticipated in 2012

• 5 days for bees

• 5 days for syrphids

Work in Urban Ecosystems• Urban pollinators and green

corridors

• Ottawa outreach & zoning

laws

• Encouraging the use of native

plants

• Extend natural areas and

create more corridors

Acknowledgements• Photos from

Bugguide, Flick’r,

Steve Marshall,

Angela Skevington