Acronym: PhylDOL
Collaborators: Massimiliano Virgilio (JEMU-RMCA), Nathalie Smitz (JEMU-RMCA), Patrick Grootaert (RBINS), Prof. Rudolf Meier (Evolutionary Biology Laboratory, NUS, Singapore), Drs. Abdullah Samoh (Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai campus, Kho Hong, Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand)
Year: 2015
Summary: The systematic position of the mangrove dolichopodid fly genera Ngirhaphium Evenhuis & Grootaert 2002 and Physopyga Grootaert & Meuffels 1989 is not clear. Both genera are strongly related and have been classified within the Rhaphiinae mainly on a morphological basis. At the moment only 1 specimen of Ngirhaphium has been sequenced for six genes but its phylogenetic position within the Dolichopodidae could not be resolved (Lim et al., 2010). German et al. (2011) sequenced 9 species of Rhaphiinae but the position of Ngirhaphium could not be resolved in their phylogenies. In this project, 7 species of both Ngirhaphium (5 species) and Physopyga (2 species) will be sequenced and used to make a more comprehensive dataset and to study the phylogeny of the Dolichopodidae, particularly the phylogenetic positions of Ngirhaphium and Physopyga.