Browsing by Subject "forest fires"

Flat-footed flies (Diptera: Platypezidae) are a group of small (3-6 mm) flies classified into four subfamilies based on diagnostic morphological characteristics. There are approximately 277 species worldwide. One of the subfamilies, the cosmopolitan Microsaniinae or the smoke-flies, is of particular interest. Smoke-flies are pyrophilic i.e. they are attracted to sources of smoke, such as burning wood or forest debris where they swarm. Smoke-flies are frequently observed in the presence of smoke; however, their biology remains entirely unknown. While the adult and larval habitat is understood for most other Palaearctic flat-footed flies, this information remains elusive for smoke-flies. Three different approaches are explored to increase knowledge on the biology of smoke-flies. Controlled burns organized by Metsähallitus are visited to observe the behavior of smoke-flies in a natural setting that mimics forest fires. Molecular and morphological identification is employed to identify the phoretic mites carried by smoke-flies, which can help to deduce the ecology and habitat preferences of the mites and consequently infer the habitats of smoke-fly larvae. Additionally, shotgun metagenomic sequencing of entire smoke-fly samples is utilized to determine if it’s possible to identify a molecular signature of the fungi in the genomic reads, which could provide insights into the ecological aspects of their habitats. The results confirm that the reproduction of smoke-flies is directly linked to forest fires. The use of an emergence trap in freshly burned forest demonstrated that smoke-fly larvae likely reside within the soil. These findings are supported by the taxonomic classification of fungal reads obtained through shotgun metagenomic sequencing, which identified soil-based arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in adult smoke-fly samples. Although the analysis of phoretic mites provided no additional information on the biology of smoke-flies, the presence of mites in nearly all smoke-flies captured by the emergence trap confirm the ecological linkage between the habitat of mites and smoke-fly larvae. Integration of the results obtained from this study provides key information on the biology of smoke-flies and the specific habitat of the unknown larvae.