3 November, 2003

Australian researchers are to join a major international research project into the evolutionary history of flies.

"A big part of biodiversity is actually 'flyodiversity'," says Dr David Yeates "Of nearly two million living species known to science - and there are many more yet to be discovered - around 10% are flies (Diptera) of some sort."

The order Diptera includes flies, mosquitoes, gnats and midges.

Molecular biologist Dr John Oakeshott and entomologist Dr Yeates, both from CSIRO Entomology, are part of an international team that has been awarded a major five year grant by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate the evolutionary history of flies.

"Australians don't need reminding about the rich diversity of flies in the summer," says Dr Yeates. "In fact, Australia may have as many as forty thousand species of flies."

Flies are an evolutionary success story, according to Dr Yeates. They evolved about 250 million years ago, well before dinosaurs.

"Their body design has allowed them to diversify and flourish as other groups of animals and plants dwindled and disappeared," he says.

Dr Yeates says that flies are much more than just a summer nuisance, and make their presence felt in many ways.

"Mosquitoes and tsetse flies carry disease, sheep blow flies and screw-worm flies attack livestock and fruit flies are pests of agriculture," he says. "The study of genetics owes much to the tiny fly, Drosophila, and flies are important environmental nutrient recyclers."

The international team, led by Professor Brian Wiegmann of North Carolina State University, is part of a much larger NSF project. Based on Charles Darwin's vision of the 'great Tree of Life ... with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications' the NSF initiative aims to assemble a Tree of Life for all 1.7 million living species.

Dr Oakeshott says that he will be studying the evolution of insecticide resistance genes in flies, and that Dr Yeates and Dr Christine Lambkin will be part of a team dealing with information on the hundreds of fly body characteristics being used in the study.

The main superstructure of the evolutionary tree will be constructed using modern DNA techniques and the data analysed further to provide 'leaves' until species from each of the 150 recognised families of flies are included.

The results will be available on a web site maintained by the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington DC, USA.

A major outcome of the initiative will be training a large number of undergraduate and postgraduate students in Australia, Canada, the USA and Singapore. Dr Oakeshott and Dr Yeates are currently searching for an enthusiastic PhD student to be part of this team.

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