The origins and times of divergence of the speciose Hawaiian Drosophilidae are examined using mtDNA sequences. The Hawaiian Drosophilidae are resolved as the sister group to the subgenus Drosophila. No one member of the subgenus Drosophila could be determined to be more closely related to the Hawaiian Drosophilidae than could any other. This result suggests that the Hawaiian Drosophilidae arose...

The region of the clock gene period (per) that encodes a repetitive tract of threonine-glycine (Thr-Gly) pairs has been compared between Dipteran species both within and outside the Drosophilidae. All the non-Drosophilidae sequences in this region are short and present a remarkably stable picture compared to the Drosophilidae, in which the region is much larger and extremely variable, both in s...

Adaptive radiations are characterized by an increased rate of speciation and expanded range of habitats and ecological niches exploited by those species. The Hawaiian Drosophilidae is a classic adaptive radiation; a single ancestral species colonized Hawaii approximately 25 million years ago and gave rise to two monophyletic lineages, the Hawaiian Drosophila and the genus Scaptomyza. The Hawaii...

Drosophilidae (Diptera) is a diverse, cosmopolitan family of flies. Here, we present a combined analysis phylogeny of Drosophilinae, one of the two subfamilies of Drosophilidae, based on data from six different data partitions, including both molecular and morphological characters. Although our data show support for the monophyly of the Hawaiian Drosophilidae, and the subgenus Sophophora, neith...

The Hawaiian Archipelago is the most isolated island system on the planet and has been the subject of evolutionary research for over a century. The largest radiation of species in Hawaii is the Hawaiian Drosophilidae, a group of approximately 1000 species. Dispersal to isolated island systems like Hawaii is rare and the resultant flora and fauna shows high disharmony with mainland communities. ...

Drosophila serido Vilela & Sene is a polytypic and cactophilic species with broad geographic distribution in Brazil. The morphology of the aedeagi of eight natural populations of D. serido was analyzed. Based on features of their aedeagi, populations of D. serido were discriminated with an efficiency of nearly 75%. The analysis using the Mantel test suggests that the morphological divergence of...

Global warming and anthropogenic disturbances significantly influence the biosphere, tremendously increasing species extinction rates. In Central Alabama, we analyzed Drosophilidae species composition change nearly 100 years after the previous survey. We found ten Drosophilid species that were not reported during the last major biodiversity studies, two of which are invasive pests. In addition,...

A year long study was conducted to analyze the altitudinal and seasonal variation in a population of Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) on Chamundi hill of Mysore, Karnataka State, India. A total of 16,671 Drosophila flies belonging to 20 species of 4 subgenera were collected at altitudes of 680 m, 780 m, 880 m and 980 m. The subgenus Sophophora was predominant with 14 species and the subgenus...

The present study aims to characterise the assemblages of Drosophilidae sampled from four sites subject to different levels of urbanisation, in the city of Florianópolis, South Brazil. Five samples were collected between August 2000 and August 2001 and five between August 2002 and August 2003 in each site. A gradual change in the dominant species was observed in the urbanisation gradient, with ...

Drosophilidae is one of the most representative families of insects that occurs in fungal fruiting bodies of Basidiomycetes; however, the diversity and community structure of mycophagous Drosophilidae in the Neotropical region is poorly known. The aims of the present study were to describe the diversity of mycophagous Drosophilidae and to investigate its colonization of fungal hosts in a forest...