Nature's Archive #50: Dr. Brian Brown - Phenomenal Phorid Flies, Hyperdiversity, DNA Barcoding, and more
Today's guest is Dr. Brian Brown, Curator of Entomology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. A native of Toronto, Canada, Dr. Brown did his undergraduate and masters work at the University of Guelph. During the latter, under the tutelage of well known entomologist Steve Marshall, Dr. Brown took up the study of the fly family Phoridae. This is a phenomenally diverse family of extremely interesting flies that, of course, we discuss at length today.
In 1990, Dr. Brown obtained his doctorate at the University of Alberta in Canada, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution and University of Maryland. In 1993 he took up his current position in Los Angeles.
Today we discuss Dr. Brown’s work at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County - in particular, the scale and diversity of the collections, and the implications of that on the work that he does.
We pretty quickly delve into the aforementioned phorid flies. There are potentially as many as one million species of these flies, but to give you an idea of the diversity and scale of the work, only 4,500 have been described to date. Yes, you heard that right! Dr. Brown discusses the challenges of having so few people studying such an immense diversity of species, and approaches involved such as DNA barcoding.
Even among the 4500 described species, there are many amazing natural history stories that we get into, ranging from the aptly named “Coffin Fly” to ant-decapitating phorids.
We weave in and out of many fascinating subjects, from research in the Amazon canopy, to surprising discoveries in Los Angeles, to invasive ant species.
You can find Dr. Brown through the museum’s website at nhm.org, on his blog at flyobsession.net, or his Phorid fly site at phorid.net.
This discussion was full of surprises and a lot of fun, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.
FULL SHOW NOTES
Links To Topics Discussed
Dan Janzen, ecologist cataloging Costa Rican biodiversity
flyobsession.net - Dr. Brown's blog
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
The Nature Conservancy - conservation charity recommended by Dr. Brown
Phorid.net - Dr. Brown's Phorid resource
Rainforest Trust - conservation charity recommended by Dr. Brown
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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com
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