Phylinae, Mirinae, and more

Despite recent progress in investigating phylogenetic relationships of the plant bug subfamily Phylinae and a new classification of the group, and taxonomic efforts by the Plant Bug PBI, new species and genera remain to be discovered in this large subfamily. Our lab continues to work on Australian Phylinae, but has also started to investigate phylogenetic, biogeographic, and phylogeographic relationships among Phylinae in the California Floristic Province.

Taxonomy and phylogenetics of Mirinae are new emphasis in the lab with new PhD student Carlos Rosas, who will join the Weirauch lab in fall 2016, supported by a UC Mexus/Conacyt fellowship. 

Miridae are an excellent group to study areas of endemism as we have shown with our recent work that was part of the Tri-Trophic Database ADBC TCN: many species have fairly small distribution ranges and species numbers in North America are high, and predicted areas of endemism (using NDM/VNDM) are congruent with areas defined by other groups of organisms such as mammals.