Assembly of a Phragmites-associated Chloropidae (Diptera) fauna in North America: the Palearctic genus Cryptonevra Lioy in the Nearctic, and the genus Lipara Meigen in Canada.

A diverse Diptera assemblage, dominated by the family Chloropidae, is associated with common reed (Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steudel, Poaceae) in the Palearctic region (Tewksbury et al. 2002). Although P. australis has long been present in North America, many of its associated Chloropidae have remained restricted to the Palearctic. The best-known chloropid associates of Phragmites are species of the genus Lipara Meigen, whose larvae form galls on P. australis. Lipara similis Schiner was accidentally introduced to North America in a shipment containing Phragmites as packing material (Sabrosky 1958) and three species of Lipara (L. similis, L. rufitarsis Loew, L. pullitarsis Doskočil & Chvála) are now established in the northeastern United States (Tewksbury et al. 2002). A fourth species, L. lucens Meigen, was collected in Connecticut in 1931 (Sabrosky 1958) but its establishment in North America has been considered doubtful (Tewksbury et al. 2002). The genus Calamoncosis Enderlein, which includes some species associated with P. australis, has recently been recorded in the Nearctic, with five described species (3 Nearctic, 2 Holarctic) present in the region (Eichiner et al. 2011, Grégoire Taillefer & Wheeler, 2011). The chloropid genus Cryptonevra Lioy contains nine described species, all Palearctic (Ismay 1994). The larvae are associated with grasses (including Phragmites), either as primary herbivores, or as inquilines in Lipara galls on Phragmites (Ismay 1994, Grochowska 2007). In this paper, we document the first Nearctic record of a described species of Cryptonevra, and the first Canadian record of Lipara, based on specimens from a suburban park near Montreal, Quebec.