R. C. L. Perkins' Legacy to Evolutionary Research on Hawaiian Drosophilidae (Diptera)

Abstract

R. C. L. Perkins' influence on evolutionary research on the Hawaiian Drosophilidae is presented. His observations of the bizarre secondary sexual structures in this group led evolutionary biologists to focus research on the role of sexual selection in speciation and the evolutionary processes responsible for the proliferation of Drosophila species in the native Hawaiian fauna. A review of early taxonomic treatment of the group and some of the ecological novelties of the group are discussed. A better understanding of the genetics, ecology, behavior, morphology, etc. resulted in a revision of the generic concepts of the group, and subsequent phylogenetic studies using modem tools of molecular biology have confirmed the monophyletic relationships among the species in this group.