Biogeography
Biogeography -geographical distribution of organisms
Myriophora are found on five continents. Most known species have been collected in the Neotropical Region (Central and northern South America). The known distribution of these flies will increase as more research is done on the Afrotropical and Oriental Regions.
The species of Myriophora found in the Old World are monophyletic (i.e. all these species more closely related to each other than any species found in North or South America). Myriophora are not found south of the Wallace Line. This is unusual because insect groups generally are not limited in their ability to island hop from the southeastern Asia into northern Australia.
Past Dispersal Events
Our findings, based on the evolutionary history of the genus and the geographical locations where we have collected species suggest that Myriophora first originated in either North or South America and likely used a Bering landbridge to disperse into eastern Asia before eventually dispersing to the Afrotropical Region.
Use the map above to see detailed information on collecting events and specimens that have been collected. Click on the circles for specifics and hide or show species with the checkboxes in the legend.
Future Work
Our knowledge of the diversity of Myriophora in Africa and Asia is poor. Future collecting in poorly-sampled areas and mining museum collections will undoubtedly turn up new species.
Work has begun on this front, and already, at least 20 new species have been putatively discovered from the Afrotropical and Oriental regions, and they will soon be formally described.
With the description of these new species and incorporation of them into the current phylognetic framework, we will get a greater understanding of the evolutionary history of the genus and how these species have come to be distrubuted around the world.
