The Current Status of Cicada Taxonomy on a Region-by-Region Basis
The New World.
Currently Allen Sanborn (Barry University, Florida) and
Maxine Heath (retired) are the only cicada systematists working in North America.
They are both part time taxonomists; much of their work focuses/has focused on
physiological ecology and biogeography (specifically, summarizing geographic
distributions). Neither is training graduate students in cicada taxonomy. Maxine
Heath's Master's thesis was a taxonomic treatment of Arizona cicadas of the genus
Okanagana (Heath, 1976, unpublished), and her Ph.D. thesis reviewed the
taxonomy of North American cicada genera (Heath 1978, unpublished). Allen Sanborn
has submitted a North American cicada species catalogue for publication in the
spring of 2003. He will also have a checklist of New World species with their
country distributions ready in the fall of 2003 or Spring 2004. With Maxine Heath
(his former advisor), he is working on keys to the genera and species of North
America. With his wife, Polly, he is working on the biogeography/ecology of North
American cicada species based on data from museum collections (55 collections
have been visited so far, several dozen remain). Since 1980, two new tribes, ten
new genera, 48 new species and 10 nom nud have been published. In the New World,
the North American cicada fauna is the best known; South American cicadas are
very poorly known and there is no taxonomist except Allen Sanborn working on
them. We have made contact with several Brazilian ecologists who study cicadas
and they emphasized the need for taxonomic work in their country.
South East Asia and the Western Pacific.
The Amsterdam cicada group of
Hans Duffels has created a specimen database including all specimens of West
Pacific cicadas (New Guinea, Solomons, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa) known to science.
They have made maps for all species and Hans is working on a paper in which he
tries to recognize biodiversity hotspots and the different distribution patterns
in New Guinea and the other islands mentioned. His group is also working on a
database for West Indonesia and the southern part of the SE Asian mainland (but
the big problem is that many taxonomic groups need revision). Revisions will be
ongoing. They have revised several groups in the last two years and every time
they revise a group they find, in identified and unidentified museum material,
about as many described as new species. Currently they have about 10,000 specimen
records for cicadas (many specimens from the same locality, data, collector etc
represent one specimen record). They will soon provide a list of the cicadas of
the West Pacific, that can accessed through this website. In combination with
the lists of New Zealand, Australian and New Caledonian species (published my M.
Boulard), this will cover most of the Pacific. The Amsterdam cicada group has
published (e.g. Duffels and Turner, 2002, Beuk, 2002) on the phylogeny of the 220
cicada species of two subtribes of the tribe Dundubiini: Dundubiina (occurring
the SE Asian mainland and West Indonesia), and Cosmopsaltriina (occurring in the
West Pacific) The other major group of West Pacific cicadas is formed by the
tribes Chlorocystini and Prasiini. This group of about 150 species has been
studied by the cicada group in Amsterdam (e.g. De Boer 1995). De Boer revised the
group (about 20 publications), and published papers on its phylogeny and
biogeography. Overviews of this cicada work in the West Pacific have been
published by De Boer and Duffels (1996, 1997). DuffelsÕ current research seeks to
examine the taxonomy and phylogeny of the tribe Ticicenini (153 species from
eight genera located in North America, SE Asia, India, Madagascar, and the
Western Pacific). The Simon lab is currently looking for a student who could
undertake a collaborative project with Duffels on the phylogeny of these cicadas
based on morphology and molecules. The ultimate goal of this project would be to
understand the biogeographic relationships among Eurasian, SE Asian, West Pacific
and Australian tibicenine cicadas and compare this to work by Moulds and Simon
(in progress) on the tribe Cicadettini. Masami Hayashi, a Japanese cicada
taxonomist/ecologist, would also be involved in the ongoing revisionary work
associated with the project. Duffels has recently trained three students, Arnold
de Boer, Paul Beuk, and Marieke Schouten. Unfortunately, none have gone on to
practice cicada taxonomy.
Palaearctic.
Europe, North Africa, China, Japan, Korea. Palaearctic cicadas
have been studied for over 200 years and are the best-documented cicada fauna.
Despite this extensive study, modern systematic methods (molecular and auditory)
are discovering many new species. An understanding of the Palaearctic fauna is
also critical for an understanding of the current higher classification of
cicadas as it was originally based on the Palaearctic fauna. Michel Boulard has
been working on the systematics of Palaearctic cicadas since the early 1970s and
has published extensively. He has also concentrated on the taxonomy of African
cicadas and his recent PhD student, Jerome Sueur studied the evolution of sound
production in European Tibicina (the taxonomy of which still needs work).
[Sueur will soon be taking up a postdoctoral position studying sound production
in mosquitoes.] Boulard has a comprehensive collection of Palaearctic cicadas in
addition to collections from Africa, Thailand and South America. Masami Hayashi
is an ecologist and authority on the cicadas of Japan and neighboring countries.
A large number of European workers study or have studied cicada song production and morphology: M. Gogala (retired from Prirodoslovni muzej Slovenije, Ljubljana), A.V.
Popov (Sechenov Institute Evol. Physiology and Biochemistry, St. Petersburg),
W. Schedl (retired from Institut Zoologie, Innsbruck), Mike Claridge (retired
from University of Wales, Cardiff) and Dr. Matthias Hennig (Berlin, Germany).
Jose Quartau (U. Lisboa, Portugal) and his students also have been studying
courtship behavior and molecular systematics of Palaearctic cicadas, mostly from
the Iberian Peninsula. Matija Gogala, Tomi Trillar and others have worked for
the last 15 years on sound production in the cicadas of Eastern Europe and SE
Asia. Zhongren Lei (Institute of Plant protection, Chinese Academy of
Agricultural Sciences, Beijing), primarily working in agricultural entomology, in
association with other Chinese workers has recently produced a book on the
taxonomy of Chinese cicadas. Young June Lee (MS on cicadas of Korea, PhD. on
taxonomy of Taiwanese cicadas and molecular systematics of some species of
Cicadetta) is working in Korea. Of the above researchers, only Boulard is
primarily a taxonomist and he will retire this year. In addition to the
Palaearctic, Boulard also studied the cicadas of Madagascar and New Caledonia.
Africa, South of the Sahara.
Martin Villet is a part time cicada
taxonomist and coordinator and manager of the "The Insects of Southern Africa"
website http://www.ru.ac.za/insectalogue/. It contains a checklist of over 150
species of southern African cicadas, along with synonymical and distributional
data. The information is drawn from a database containing over 5000 collecting
events, and incorporating most major public and private collections of Southern
African cicadas. Photographs of specimens are being added, and distribution maps
and keys will be added as they become available. Under the initiative of ICIPE,
Martin Villet has compiled a checklist of the African cicadas, with synonyms and
distribution records, and this will be placed on the WWW in 2003. Martin Villet
currently has approximately 50 undescribed SA cicada species in his collection
waiting to be described. There are undoubtedly many more species remaining to be
found including cryptic species identifiable only by song or DNA. The
biodiversity of South Africa and other regions of the world that have been
studied by cicada taxonomists is dwarfed by that of Australia. We are currently
looking for an MS or PhD student to take on a collaborative project between our
group and Villet on the systematics of South African cicadas.
Australia and New Zealand.
Max Moulds has studied Australian cicadas since
1978 and in 1990 published his book "Australian Cicadas," a guide for both
amateurs and professionals to the described cicada species. Other Australian
cicada workers include Tony Ewart, a retired Geologist with a long interest in
the cicadas of Queensland (especially acoustics), and Lindsay Popple who is
currently completing an honors thesis at the University of Queensland revising
the Pauropsalta annulata group. Australia is the center of diversity of the
tribe Cicadettini (the tribe in which most of the Simon lab systematic and
evolutionary work has concentrated). Other tribes are also hyperdiverse in
Australia. Max Moulds has completed a catalogue of the described Australian
cicadas for an ABRS (Australian Biological Resources Study) grant. This catalogue
will be available in electronic form only on the ABRS web site:
http://www.ea.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/abif/fauna/afd/frames /chcklist.html. It
includes things like basic synonymy, location of types, etc. As mentioned above,
there are many undescribed species of Australian cicadas some of which are in
collections and recognized as members of species complexes. There are currently
224 described species but over 500 are represented in collections. Moulds
estimates a total fauna of some 700 species. New Zealand cicadas were studied by
Charles Fleming and John Dugdale in the 1960's, 70's and 80's. Although John
Dugdale and Charles Fleming made extensive progress in revising New Zealand
cicadas (Dugdale 1971, Fleming 1971, 1973, 1984), Fleming's death in the mid
1980's effectively halted this work. After this, Dugdale returned to his primary
interest, Lepidoptera and retired in the late 1990's (although he continues as an
active Lepidopteran taxonomist and has provided valuable assistance and
unpublished information on NZ cicadas).