Abai, MR

6th International Congress of DipterologyGeographic limits and causal factors for endemisms in theAtlantic Forest, Brazil: biogeography and a HomePage forthe Neotropical Diptera (1)Amorim, D.S. (2), N. Papavero (3), V.C. Silva (4), C.J.E. Lamas (3), S.S. Nihei (3)(1) FAPESP Grant n o 2003/10.274-9(2) Depto. de Biologia, FFCLRP, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Bandeirantes 3900,14.040-901 Ribeirão Preto SP BRAZIL, dsamorim@usp.br(3) Museu de Zoologia, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Nazareth 481, 04263-000 SãoPaulo SP, BRAZIL.(4) Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Faculdade de Ciências e Letras de Assis –UNESP, Av. Dom Antonio 2100, 19.806-900 Assis SP BRAZIL.Biological diversity is heterogeneously distributed in space in such a waythat knowledge on biodiversity does not correspond merely to a list ofnames. Even though attention given to biodiversity has grown in the lastdecades, quite few is actually known about the geographic patterns ofdistribution of species and about the causes of these patterns. In the case ofthe Neotropical fauna, it is still not possible to map the distribution ofBrazilian species of most groups. This deficiency has implications forconservation policies and for the understanding of basic evolutionaryprocesses. This ongoing project uses biological material collected withstandardized methods along the Atlantic Forest (especially Malaise traps,Moericke and sweeping) to delimit areas of endemism for groups ofDiptera and to apply phylogenetic and biogeographic methods of analysisto search for and to examine congruence among these patterns. Whenbiogeographic patterns are congruent with the geological history of SouthAmerica, it points to groups associated to the geological origin of thecontinent in the Gondwanaland, in a way that the diversity of these groupswould have slowly originated along the last 80,000,000 years. Patterns thatdisagree from the general biogeographical pattern probably originated inthe region due to dispersion. However, groups entering Central and SouthAmerica coming from the Nearctic Region in Cretaceous or later –e.g.,acalyptrate families– and truly Gondwanian clades have undergone thesame geological events along the early and late Tertiary, so they exhibit5