May

15

2008
 
 

Fly in flowers



Neotropical insect biodiversity greater than previously thought

Still think we're all just bugs?DNA barcoding has once again revealed a wealth of unknown species, this time in neotropical insects. Writing in this week’s Science, a team of researchers led by Cornell College’s Marty Condon tell of their study of a group of fruit flies – the Blepharoneura – whose larvae munch their way unseen through species of plants in the particularly tasty Curcurbitaceae family, a group that includes cucumbers, pumpkins and melons. From a Central and South American study area measuring some 5500 km by 3000 km, they caught and reared 2857 flies from 24 host plant species, then ground them up and extracted their DNA for analysis. What they found was a remarkable degree of species diversity: 52 species of flies, many of which looked pretty much identical. However, this abundance of biodiversity was linked to a high level of specialization, with many species feeding not only a single plant species, but often just one sex or structure. With many species found at a lone site, the findings are likely to complicate conservation work, although welcome light has been thrown on the interaction between geography and diversity in this evolutionary epicenter. Source: Condon MA, Scheffer SJ, Lewis ML & Swensen SM (2008) Hidden neotropical diversity: greater than the sum of its parts. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1155832

Image © Marty Condon

Filed Under Endangered species, Habitat, Monitoring, Tools and technology | 

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