Apoyando la Iniciativa Barcoding de Adn en Ecuador: Phóridos (Diptera, Phoridae) De los Bosques Tropicales del Noroccidente Andino

The Phoridae, or humpback flies, are possibly the group with the greatest diversity of behavioral habits among animals, and yet one of the least studied of the major Diptera families. In Ecuador, although species have been recorded in some localities, the only published taxonomic study is a synopsis of the family for the Galápagos Islands. Despite their ecological importance, this group is largely ignored in biodiversity inventories due to the difficulty in identifying its tiny species. Therefore, it is necessary to study diagnostic characteristics and include molecular analyses. DNA barcoding has proven particularly useful in discriminating operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in the absence of species keys. To contribute to the knowledge of this group's fauna, we selected three Andean-tropical localities where we collected specimens that were subsequently analyzed morphologically and molecularly. The 41 OTUs recorded, for which diagnostic characters are proposed, coincided with the terminals represented in the tree constructed with the CO1 gene. The genetic sequences obtained facilitated the discrimination between OTUs previously classified as identical by morphological observation, providing (again) support to molecular barcoding.