Los Angeles

A Bed & Breakfast in L.A. reveals the lifestyle of a secretive fly species

For nearly 30 years, Dr. Brian Brown knew about a mysterious unidentified phorid fly species, whose females would often be spotted flying above mushrooms, while the males were nowhere to be found.

Little did anyone know that this years-long puzzle would be solved once and for all after a surprising call came in earlier this year, in April.

Los Angeles Bed & Breakfast owners Patsy Carter and Lisa Carter-Davis had decided to alert entomologists about the newly emerged numerous mushrooms in their yard.

The study is published in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal by Dr. Brian Brown and his colleague at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Emily A. Hartop. It is the latest in a series of publications resulting from the extensive BioScan Project, which surveys the biodiversity in the Los Angeles area and was launched in 2012 by the NHMLA.

It turned out that these mushrooms were hosting the mysterious flies. Females were ovipositing in the mushroom caps with the larvae subsequently developing and feeding on the lower surface of the fungi, deep within the gills. Later, the larvae would exit the mushroom to pupate into the soil underneath before emerging as adults.

Most importantly, the team managed to collect specimens of the previously unknown males, which allowed them to successfully identify the mysterious species as Megaselia marquezi. Over the span of the BioScan Project, the species had already been known to be the sixth most commonly collected one around Los Angeles, yet its lifestyle has remained a secret until now.

“About 100 species, mostly of Megaselia, are known from Los Angeles, but many were new to science and had nothing known of their lifestyle,” explain the authors. “Matching a lifestyle with a species previously known only from a name is a significant accomplishment.”

They also noted that, “We can do great things with the help of citizen scientists, who extend our reach into urban areas that are generally off-limits”.

“Possibly, the widespread irrigation of lawns allows fungal growth that supports an abundant fungivore community, but our ignorance of the fauna of the surrounding natural areas makes such statements highly speculative.”

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Original source:

Brown B, Hartop E (2017) Mystery mushroom malingerers: Megaselia marquezi Hartop et al. 2015 (Diptera: Phoridae). Biodiversity Data Journal 5: e15052. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.5.e15052

Flightless survivors: Incredible invertebrate diversity in Los Angeles metropolitan area

Urban wildlife is surprisingly understudied. We tend to know more about animals in exotic places than about those that live in our cities.

This is why researchers Emile Fiesler, president of Bioveyda Biological Inventories, Surveys, and Biodiversity Assessments, USA, and Tracy Drake, manager of the Madrona Marsh Preserve, looked into the fauna of the Madrona Marsh Preserve, California, a small nature preserve in one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas.

Consequently, they published the astonishing number of 689 species of invertebrates, which have managed to survive decades of farming and oil exploration, followed by development pressures, in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal. The study was minimally invasive as the live animals have been recorded with macro-photography.

Even though it is the insects that first developed the ability to fly, long before the dinosaurs became birds, the latter have always received the most of our attention. This major evolutionary breakthrough, which has occurred more than once in the past, is also a reason why insects are currently the most diverse animals on earth in terms of number of species.

“Insects and other invertebrates have filled all ecological niches and all corners of our planet,” explain the authors. “No surprise that these small creatures conquered our cities and invaded our homes as well.”

Most of the urban dwellers, however, have been introduced – accidentally or deliberately – by humans.

“The remainder – native ‘wild’ species – are able to survive in the city mainly due to their adaptivity,” they point out. “It is therefore surprising to find a number of flightless species in a small area surrounded by urbanization.”

The Madrona Marsh Preserve is located in Torrance, which is part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area is one of the world’s largest, with a human population of more than 17 million.

The Madrona Marsh Preserve, boasting seasonal wetlands, is well known as a birdwatchers’ paradise. Besides birds, its other vertebrates (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes), as well as its flowering plants, are relatively well known. The invertebrate fauna of the Preserve, on the other hand, aside from butterflies and dragonflies, was virtually unknown.

Interestingly, night surveys revealed the presence of a ‘second shift’ diversity, or creatures seemingly complementary to those active during the day.

Among the long-time survivors are wingless camel crickets as well as velvet ants, which are wasps whose flightless females look like furry ants. Another curiosity that intrigued the researchers is an obscure flightless female bradynobaenid wasp.

The researchers were especially surprised by their encounter with a large Solifugid [image 3] – also known as Camel Spider or Wind Scorpion. Solifugids are little-known arachnids that are neither spiders, nor scorpions, and can grow up to 15 cm (6 in). Their order’s name Solifugae translates from Latin as “those that flee from the sun”.

All in all, the biodiversity study resulted in 689 species without a backbone, belonging to 13 classes, 39 orders, and 222 families, found on this island surrounded by urbanization.

“Not unlike the moas and dodos, these ‘island’ inhabitants stayed grounded through the ages,” acknowledge the researchers.

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Original source:

Fiesler E, Drake T (2016) Macro-invertebrate Biodiversity of a Coastal Prairie with Vernal Pool Habitat. Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e6732. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e6732

About the authors:

Emile Fiesler is president of Bioveyda Biodiversity Inventories, Surveys, and Studies, and Tracy Drake is manager of the Madrona Marsh Preserve.

The city of angels and flies: 12 unknown scuttle fly species have been flying around L.A.

Although the second-largest and rather concrete metropolis in the United States might not be anywhere near one’s immediate association for a biodiversity hotspot, the fly fauna of Los Angeles is quite impressive. As part of BioSCAN, a project devoted to exploring the insect diversity in and around the city, a team of three entomologists report on their latest discovery – twelve new scuttle fly species. Their study is published in the open access Biodiversity Data Journal.

Launched in 2013, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County‘s project BioSCAN seems to never cease to amaze with large numbers of newly discovered species. The first phase of the study finished with 30 species of flies new to science from sites in 27 backyards, 1 community garden, the Los Angeles Ecovillage, and the Nature Gardens at the Museum. In recognition to the residents, who had literally let the scientists in their homes, each of those flies was named after the relevant site’s host.

When they decided to revisit the specimens they had collected during the first year of the project as well as older museum collections, the authors of the present paper were in fact quite certain they were about to find a new batch of unknown flies.

Having already described so many new scuttle fly species, the latest twelve had initially gone undercover, all being rare and often represented by only one specimen among the total of 43,651 collected individuals.

“The remarkable diversity of biologies of these flies makes them a varied and essential group to document in any ecosystem,” the entomologists explain.

The extensive BioSCAN project is still ongoing thanks to its passionate staff, international collaborators and advisors, as well as the large number of students and volunteers. Being especially grateful for their help, the scientists have named one of the fly species M. studentorum and another one – M. voluntariorum. The project is currently in its second phase of collecting.

“These volunteers are critical to our operation, and have contributed to everything from public outreach in the NHM Nature Lab to specialized work on phorid flies,” point out the authors.

In the end, the researchers hope that they will get their message across to other taxonomists, funding agencies, institutions and the public alike. Urban environments with their fast-changing conditions and biodiversity profile, need constant attention and scientific curiosity.

“There is an enormous taxonomic deficiency, including, or, perhaps, especially, in rapidly changing urban environments,” they say. “Taxonomists and their funding agencies must give time, attention and money to the environments surrounding their towns and cities.”

“Baseline collections of urban fauna must be established in the present if there is hope for understanding the introductions and extinctions that will occur in the future,” they stress.

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Original source:

Hartop E, Brown B, Disney R (2016) Flies from L.A., The Sequel: A further twelve new species ofMegaselia (Diptera: Phoridae) from the BioSCAN Project in Los Angeles (California, USA).Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e7756. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e7756