Why a project on smoke flies?

Smoke flies are true flies, meaning that they have one pair of functional wings. The second pair of wings, or hind wings, found in most insects are reduced to knobs called halteres. These are used by true flies in stabilizing their flight.

In more general terms, flies are insects, animals that have an exoskeleton (hard body exterior), jointed legs, three body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen), six legs (all on the thorax), and one pair of antennae. Insects are the most species-rich group of animals on the planet, and flies are also one of the most species-rich groups of insects (along with beetles, wasps-bees-ants, and butterflies-moths). Among the things that these four groups of insects share is that they have four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. In contrast, many other insects forego a pupal stage, gradually transforming from a juvenile (generally called a “nymph”) to an adult. For more detailed information about flies, see my blog flyobsession.net.

Worldwide, there are actually at least four families of flies that have species that are attracted to smoke, but the ones we are targeting in this study are species of the genus Microsania, classified in the flat-footed flies, family Platypezidae.

As far as we know, all other platypezids feed on fungi as larvae. The food of Microsania species is unknown.

You might not know this, but the distribution (where species are found) of most insects is extremely poorly known. Outside of a few popular butterflies, and some pests, like Japanese beetles, and agricultural species, like honey bees, we know remarkably little about where most species live. For instance, all of the records of Microsania in Discover Life (a popular biodiversity website)  are shown below. There are only 2 records!

This is important, because distribution data are critical for understanding how our biodiversity came to be the way it is. It can tell us what events in the past affected it, and how future changes in the environment could have an impact on various types of plants and animals that live in an area.

All of the records of smoke flies in Discover Life, a popular biodiversity web site.

One of the fastest ways to rapidly increase our knowledge of distributions is to have you, the public (citizen scientists), help collect the data. This can work if organisms are big and showy (like birds and butterflies) but is less successful for smaller creatures that are difficult to notice, not to mention actually collecting them. The smaller animals, however, have different scales of existence, perform many needed environmental services, and are as important within their habitats as any larger, more charismatic species. The problem is: how do we study them? They are SO SMALL!

Smoke flies give us an opportunity to study a group of small organisms on a massive geographical scale. These tiny, 1 mm long flies congregate in campfire smoke during the daytime. This means you can actually go outdoors and find them! Imagine how hard it is for scientists to go out and try to find any other given insect in a field or forest. It is the tiniest needle in the world’s largest haystack

The great thing about smoke flies is that they can be reliably encountered in the field. There are known from throughout the world, but are poorly sampled virtually everywhere. In North America, all that is known is that there is an Eastern species and a Western species, but no detail taxonomic work has been done on them for many years. I have at least a few species unknown to science awaiting description, and there are definitely more awaiting discovery (by you!).