Can insect assemblages tell us something about the urban environment health?

Abstract

If we consider Drosophilidae, the answer to the question above is yes. Many research groups in Brazil and abroad have been showing that assemblages of flies of this family can reflect environmental alteration levels caused by urbanization, and/or by other human disturbances. I will present here a summary of our findings in Drosophilidae assemblages reflecting different degrees of environmental perturbation. These studies were done by graduate students of two post graduate programs of UFRGS, under my supervision, along several decades. I will also present the results stemming from the effort of other Brazilian Drosophilid study groups while identifying the members of those assemblages in different Biomes. As a result of those field studies, several biological invasions were detected and many new important biological problems arose prone to be investigated by genetic, molecular biology and other related approaches.