Abai, MR

6th International Congress of DipterologyDistributional patterns of Lauxaniidae species (Diptera,Schizophora) along the Atlantic Forest, BrazilSilva, V.C. (1) & V.N.T. Yabuchi (2)(1) Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Faculdade de Ciências e Letras de Assis,UNESP Universidade Estadual Paulista, Assis, São Paulo 19806-900, Brazil(2) Undergraduate student, Curso de Ciências Biológicas, Faculdade de Ciências e Letrasde Assis, UNESP Universidade Estadual Paulista, Assis, São Paulo 19806-900, BrazilThe Atlantic Forest used to extend along the entire Brazilian eastern coastuntil the end of the 19th century. Even today, this forest holds a hugebiodiversity, mostly unknown. This study is part of a Project that intends touse material collected with standardized methods along the Atlantic Forestto delimit areas of endemism of Diptera groups and to apply phylogeneticand biogeographic methods of analysis to study congruence among theirpatterns. In this particular project, we are analyzing the geographicdistribution of the Lauxaniidae, trying to verify if there is congruencebetween the patterns shown by species of the family and patterns fromother dipteran and non-dipteran groups, known to be associated with thegeological history of South America. This is a key-point because thelauxaniids could serve as indicators for the biogeographic evolution of theAcalyptratae. A pre-Cretaceous diversification of the acalyptrates wouldimply that their presence in the Neotropics would be due to Gondwanianorigin; a more recent origin would imply in large dispersion events ofclades within families along the Cretaceous or early in the Tertiary to theRegion. The Lauxaniidae are one of the biggest Schizophora families –presently 57 genera and 358 species have been assigned for the region. Inthe present paper we consider the diversity of lauxaniids collected usingsweeping in five Brazilian states, Sergipe, Bahia, Espírito Santo, Rio deJaneiro, and São Paulo. We identified 25 genera, six of which are widelydistributed in the sampled area; 16 genera show a distribution restricted totwo contiguous states; and three genera have a disjunctive distribution. Atleast 42 species have been recognized, 21 of which are new to science.Data from Malaise and Möericke traps will be added to define a moredetailed picture of the Lauxaniidae distribution in the Atlantic Forest.233