Renato S. Capellari

On Reciprocal Illumination and Consilience in Biogeography

Biogeography deals with the combined analysis of the spatial and temporal components of the evolutionary process. To this purpose, biogeographical analysis should consider two extra steps: a reciprocal illumination step, and a consilience step. Even if the traditional challenges of biogeography were successfully handled, the obtained hypothesis is not necessarily meaningful in biogeographical terms––it needs continuous test in the light of external hypotheses. For this reason, a concept analogous to Hennig’s reciprocal illumination is valuable, as well as a sort of biogeographical consilience in Whewell’s sense. Firstly, through the search for different classes of evidence, information useful to improve the hypothesis can be accessed via reciprocal illumination. Following, a more general hypothesis would arise through a consilience process, when the hypothesis explains phenomena not contemplated during its construction, as the distribution of other taxa or the existence (or absence) of fossils. This procedure aims to evaluate the robustness of biogeographical hypotheses as scientific theories. Such theories are reliable descriptions of how life changes its form both in space and time, putting historical biogeography close to Croizat’s statement of evolution as a three dimensional phenomenon.

Timeless standards for species delimitation

Recently a new species of bombyliid fly, Marleyimyia xylocopae, was described by Marshall & Evenhuis (2015) based on two photographs taken during fieldwork in the Republic of South Africa. This species has no preserved holotype. The paper generated some buzz, especially among dipterists, because in most cases photographs taken in the field provide insufficient information for properly diagnosing and documenting species of Diptera.

On typeless species and the perils of fast taxonomy

C H A R L E S M O R P H Y D . S A N T O S 1, D A L T O N S . A M O R I M 2, B R U N A K L A S S A 1, D I E G O A . F A C H I N 2, S I L V I O S . N I H E I 3, C L A U D I O J . B . D E C A R VA L H O 4, R A F A E L A L . F A L A S C H I 5, C Á T I A A . M E L L O P A T I U 6, M Á R C I A S . C O U R I 6, S A R A H S . O L I V E I R A 7, V E R A C . S I L VA 8, G U I L H E R M E C . R I B E I R O 1, R E N A T O S . C A P E L L A R I 9 and C A R L O S J O S É E . L A M A S 5

Review of the Afrotropical genus Aphasmaphleps Grichanov (Diptera: Dolichopodidae)

ABSTRACT The Afrotropical genus Aphasmaphleps Grichanov is reviewed. The type-species, A. bandia Grichanov, is redescribed based on material from Botswana and Tanzania, and three new species are described from Madagascar: A. bickeli sp. n., A. paulyi sp. n. and A. stuckenbergi sp. n. Females of the genus are reported for the first time, and hypopygial and oviscapt morphologies are described and illustrated in detail. A key to all named species of Aphasmaphleps is provided, and the systematic position of the genus among the diaphorines is briefly discussed.

Realism in systematics through biogeographical consilience

There is an overlooked gap between any phylogenetic hypothesis and the natural world shaped by historical evolutionary processes, since the main concern during phylogenetic analyses is solely the search for congruence among characters under a defined criterion. Given a scientific realistic view, however, phylogenetic hypotheses are scientific theories that try to depict the historical series of cladogenetic events among biological entities. In this sense, the challenge is to establish a form of measuring the degree of truthfulness of our phylogenetic hypotheses. Here, we advocate the use of consilient biogeographical hypotheses to recognize the biological meaning of a phylogenetic inference apart from its instrumentalist value. Our proposal is based on the assumption that robust biogeographical hypotheses allows us to be close to the real evolutionary history of taxa.

Comprehensive inventory of true flies (Diptera) at a tropical site

Estimations of tropical insect diversity generally suffer from lack of known groups or faunas against which extrapolations can be made, and have seriously underestimated the diversity of some taxa. Here we report the intensive inventory of a four-hectare tropical cloud forest in Costa Rica for one year, which yielded 4332 species of Diptera, providing the first verifiable basis for diversity of a major group of insects at a single site in the tropics. In total 73 families were present, all of which were studied to the species level, providing potentially complete coverage of all families of the order likely to be present at the site. Even so, extrapolations based on our data indicate that with further sampling, the actual total for the site could be closer to 8000 species. Efforts to completely sample a site, although resource-intensive and time-consuming, are needed to better ground estimations of world biodiversity based on limited sampling.Brian Brown et al. report the results of the Zurquí All Diptera Biodiversity Inventory project, one of the largest efforts to date to directly assess species richness of a megadiverse order of insects. The authors identified 41,001 flies to 4332 species, including 73 of the worlds 160 Diptera families.

Palpi aplenty: New species in the Chrysotus longipalpus species group (Diptera: Dolichopodidae)

Four new Nearctic species belonging to the Chrysotus longipalpus species group are described: Chrysotus keyensis sp. nov. (Florida), Chrysotus mccreadiei sp. nov. (Alabama), Chrysotus mystax sp. nov. (Alabama), and Chrysotus plumarista sp. nov. (Alabama). This brings the number of known species in this group to twelve. A key to species of males of the C. longipalpus species group and new distribution records are provided.

Two new species of Neurigona Rondani from northern and northeastern Brazil (Diptera, Dolichopodidae)

Two new species of Neurigona Rondani from northern and northeastern Brazil (Diptera, Dolichopodidae). Two new species of Neurigona Rondani (Diptera: Dolichopodidae) of the brevitibia-group are described from northern and northeastern Brazil: N. lenae sp. nov. and N. manauara sp. nov. A key to males of the brevitibia-group is provided.