Dr Christine Lambkin
Christine Lambkin, Sorting through a Malaise catch for stiletto flies at Karijini NP, Western Australia. Photograph Noel Starick
The Lower Brachyceran fly, Scaptia guttata (Tabanidae). Photograph Andreas Zwick.
One of Australia’s largest flies with a wing span of 8cm, the robber fly, Phelus piliferus (Asilidae). Photograph Noel Starick.
An undescribed Australian therevid. Photograph Chris Lambkin
The exoprosopine beefly, Wurda windorah on daisies at Windorah, Qld. Photograph Chris Lambkin.
Christine Lambkin and Noel Starick collecting beeflies at Pyramid Hill, Northern Territory. Photograph Jac Recsei
Morphology of the Australian Therevidae. Photograph Chris Lambkin
A flower-loving fly from the Family Apioceridae, on sand at White Rock River, NSW. Photograph Chris Lambkin.
The very rare Perissomma mcalpinei (Perossommatidae) collected by Dave Ferguson from Tallaganda NP, NSW for the ATOL FLYTREE project. Photograph Chris Lambkin
The recently described Johnmannia kosciuszkoensis (Diptera: Therevidae). Photograph Chris Lambkin
Biodiversity Curator (Entomology) / Queensland Museum
Research:
Organisms – Flies
Following a Postdoctoral Fellowship at CSIRO Entomology Canberra, Christine is currently working at the Queensland Museum as part of the large, international initiative on Diptera, FLYTREE in the American NSF Assembling the Tree of Life (ATOL) program. The flies (Diptera) are one of the most diverse groups of animals, including many pollinators, disease vectors, and agricultural pests. However, the evolutionary relationships of Diptera remain largely unknown. The FLYTREE team will construct a Tree of Life for the Order Diptera from a large sample of comparative genetic and morphological data. A comprehensive phylogeny for all Diptera will provide a valuable framework for testing evolutionary hypotheses critical in comparative studies of dipteran development, behaviour, genomics, and neurobiology and provide a major organizing framework for research in the astounding diversity of flies.
Christine continues to use morphological and molecular information to systematically examine Australian Therevidae for the American National Science Foundation (NSF) Partnerships Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET) project, in order to describe biodiversity and estimate evolutionary relationships in the genus Ectinorhynchus and its allies, for the Monograph of the Stiletto Flies of the World (NSF PEET Grant DEB-99-77958). Chris’s recent studies have included novel systematic methods such as supertree construction, to produce the first overall phylogenetic hypothesis for the Family Therevidae (stiletto flies). In collaboration with Brian Wiegmann (University of North Carolina), Chris is also investigating the use of Bayesian analyses to estimate the divergence times of radiations in the Australian Therevidae.
Christine’s Honours and PhD studies were monographic revisions of the Family Bombyliidae (beeflies) that included combined data phylogenetic analyses of morphological and molecular data, resulting in one Asian genus synonymised, a new African genus described, and 73 new species described for Australia in eleven genera, eight of them new.
Fly Publications
- Cameron, S. L., Lambkin, C. L., Barker, S. C. and Whiting, M. F. (In Press). A mitochondrial genome phylogeny of the Diptera: Whole genome sequence data successfully resolves relationships over broad timescales with high precision. Systematic Entomology.
- Ferguson, D. J. and Lambkin, C. L. (In Press). Behavioral observations of Australian stiletto flies from south-eastern New South Wales (Diptera: Therevidae). The Australian Entomologist.
- Lambkin, C.L. and Yeates, D.K. (2006) Kapu (Diptera: Bombyliidae: Anthracinae: Exoprosopini), a replacement name for the Australian genus Kapua Lambkin and Yeates 2003 Invertebrate Systematics 20, 161.
- Lambkin, C.L., Recsei, J.M. and Yeates, D.K. (2005) Systematic revision of Johnmannia Irwin and Lyneborg (Diptera: Therevidae): Atypical metallic stiletto flies from Australian mesic habitats. Zootaxa. 866, 1-28.
- Lambkin, C.L., Yeates, D.K. and Greathead, D.J. (2003) An evolutionary radiation of bee flies in semi-arid Australia: Systematics of the Exoprosopini (Diptera: Bombyliidae) Invertebrate Systematics 17, 735-891.
- Papoucheva, E., Proviz, V, Lambkin, C.L., Goddeeris, B. and Blinov, A. (2003). Phylogeny of the endemic baikalian Sergentia (Chironomidae, Diptera) Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 25, 120-125.
- Yeates, D., D. Logan, and Lambkin, C.L. (1999). Immature stages of the bee fly Ligyra satyrus (Diptera: Bombyliidae): a hyperparasitoid of canegrubs (Coleoptera: Scarabaedae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 38, 300-4.
Data – Morphology
Christine’s Honours and PhD studies were monographic revisions of the Family Bombyliidae (beeflies) that included combined data phylogenetic analyses of morphological and molecular data of the Australian fauna. Using phylogenetic analyses of morphological data, Chris was able to determine species and generic limits. Chris’s PhD included intensive phylogenetic examination of morphological data of all world genera of the beefly tribe Exoprosopinae, and all species of that tribe purported to occur in Australia.
Christine is currently working at the Queensland Museum as part of the large, international initiative on Diptera, FLYTREE in the American NSF Assembling the Tree of Life (ATOL) program. The FLYTREE team will construct a Tree of Life for the Order Diptera from a large sample of comparative genetic and morphological data. Chris is part of a group of world experts in dipteran morphology developing the first comprehensive morphological character set and scored matrix for all fly families in the Order Diptera. Chris is responsible for the updating and dissemination of the character list, the scoring of the Lower Brachycera, the amalgamation of the morphological data matrix, and the phylogenetic analyses of the morphological data. Issues that have arisen are estimations of homology, consistency in interpretation and scoring of characters and states, and methods to maximise the information from inapplicables while distinguishing them from missing data while analysing data with many missing entries.
Over the years, Chris has collaborated with many scientists, analysing their morphological data to determine species and generic limits.
Morphological Data Publications
- Ballantyne, L.A. and Lambkin, C. (2006) Pygoluciola Wittmer (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae) A Reassessment. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 54, 21-48.
- Ballantyne, L.A. and Lambkin, C.L. (2001). A new firefly, Luciola (Pygoluciola) kinabalua, new species (Coleoptera: Lampyridae), from Malaysia, with observations on a possible copulation clamp. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 49(2), 363-377.
- Davies, V.T. and Lambkin, C.L. (2001). A revision of Procambridgea Forster & Wilton, (Araneae: Amaurobioidea: Stiphidiidae). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 46(2), 443-459.
- Davies, V. and Lambkin, C.L. (2000). Malarina, a new spider genus (Araneae: Amaurobioidea: Kababininae) from the wet tropics, Queensland Australia. Queensland Museum Memoirs 45(2), 273-283.
- Davies, V.T. and Lambkin, C.L. (2000). Wabua, a new spider (Araneae: Amaurobioidea: Kababininae) from North Queensland, Australia. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 46(1), 129-147.
- Ballantyne, L.A. and Lambkin, C.L. (2000). The Lampyridae of Australia (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae: Luciolini). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 46(1), 15-93.
Methods – combined data
Christine’s Honours and PhD studies were monographic revisions of the Family Bombyliidae (beeflies) that included combined data phylogenetic analyses of morphological and molecular data of the Australian fauna. In her Honours studies Chris examined the congruence of seven different character sets within the clade comprising the genera Anthrax and Thraxan (Bombyliidae: Anthracinae) into – antennae, venation, wing patterns, vestiture, genitalia, male genitalia and female genitalia – using several incongruence indices. Results indicated that the wing-pattern character set was significantly incongruent with the other morphological data. These quantitative cladistic results explained the difficulty previous authors experienced in finding suites of characters to support species-groups in Anthrax on the basis of wing patterns. A relationship was found between the level of incongruence and the distance over which mate-recognition signals operate. Using phylogenetic analyses of morphological and molecular data in her PhD studies, Chris as able to show that a very rare genus of bee fly, previously only known from a total of 13 specimens in two species from Africa, was shown to be represented by two species in Australia, and closely related to another Australian endemic genus of two species, whose tribal position had always been problematical.
Christine Lambkin uses phylogenetic methods that track character incongruence between partitions from different sources, especially molecular and morphological data, and assess branch support (BS) such as hidden BS, partitioned hidden BS, character support, and hidden character support. Chris assesses the influence on phylogenetic signal of the conflict or incongruence between characters upon combination, and am able to contribute it to particular characters, genes or partitions of the data; or to taxa or clades.
Over the years, Chris has collaborated with many scientists, analysing their combined data examine the conflict or incongruence between characters.
Combined Data Publications
- Allsopp, P.G. and Lambkin, C.L. (2006) Canegrubs and cladistics: what story do adult, larval and ecological characters tell? Australian Journal of Entomology 45, 55-66.
- Lambkin, C.L. (2004) Partitioned Bremer support localises significant conflict in bee flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae: Anthracinae) Invertebrate Systematics 18, 351-360.
- Lambkin, C.L. and Yeates, D.K. (2003) Genes, morphology, and agreement: Congruence in Australian anthracine bee flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae: Anthracinae) Invertebrate Systematics 17: 161-184.
- Lambkin, C.L., Lee, M.S.Y., Winterton, S., and Yeates, D.K. (2002). Partitioned Bremer Support and multiple trees. Cladistics. 18: 436-444.
- Lambkin, C.L. and Yeates, D.K. (1998). Characters, congruence, and beeflies: Cryptic species diversity in Australian Anthracini (Diptera: Bombyliidae). Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland 107: 123-6.
- Yeates, D.K. and Lambkin, C.L. (1998). Cryptic species diversity and character congruence: Review of the tribe Anthracini (Diptera: Bombyliidae) in Australia. Invertebrate Taxonomy 12: 977-1078.
Methods – Supertrees
Chris’s recent studies have included novel systematic methods such as supertree construction, to produce the first overall phylogenetic hypothesis for the Family Therevidae (stiletto flies).
Christine is currently working as part of the large, international initiative on Diptera, FLYTREE in the American NSF Assembling the Tree of Life (ATOL) program. The FLYTREE team will construct a Tree of Life for the Order Diptera from a large sample of comparative genetic and morphological data. Chris is part of a group of world experts in dipteran morphology developing the first comprehensive morphological character set and scored matrix for all fly families in the Order Diptera. Analyses of morphological characters and genomic data for representatives of all major dipteran lineages, and morphological characters and a reduced molecular data set for at least one species of all fly families, will be amalgamated into a meta-analysis-based supertree for 1500-2000 species of flies.
