Systematics and biogeography of the ecologically diverse genus, Scaptomyza

The genus Scaptomyza is an attractive lineage for studying important patterns of evolution for several reasons. Chief amongst those reasons is the wide array of ecological variation they display. While most Drosophila species utilize decaying plant matter and associated fungal communities as an oviposition substrate, Scaptomyza larvae exploit a wide variety of ecologies for this purpose, including spider eggs, microflora on morning glories and, interestingly, mining living plant material. Additionally, Recent research has shown that this cosmopolitan genus originated in the Hawaiian Islands, migrated to the continents in one or more events and subsequently diversified, making Scaptomyza an interesting lineage due to the extreme rarity of this biogeographic pattern. Finally, because of Scaptomyza’s placement within the genus Drosophila, a plethora of genomic tools are currently being used to explore the genetic basis of these ecological adaptations and as markers in phylogenetic and population genetic studies. To understand the evolution of these different ecologies and the development of their unique biogeography we have sequenced multiple nuclear and mitochondrial loci for several, mainly Hawaiian, subgenera to infer the phylogenetic relationships within this clade. We used ancestral range reconstructions to identify where this group evolved as well as when and where the different ecologies may have arisen. We present the preliminary results of this study including the subgeneric relationships within Scaptomyza as well as how this clade has radiated and adapted.