On the distribution and habitat use of the sub-Antarctic fly Hyadesimyia clausa Bigot (Diptera, Tachinidae) according to citizen science.

Abstract

Hyadesimyia clausa Bigot is a morphologically striking tachinid that inhabits the Sub-Antarctic Ecoregion of the Magallanes Region in Chile and Tierra del Fuego province in Argentina. Much of the distributional information about this species is restricted to the Cape Horn islands, which have extreme environmental conditions, but the species' natural history, range limits, and habitat use have never been described or confirmed. Our goals were to describe the distributional limits of this sub-Antarctic fly with the help of citizen science and use this information type to describe this tachinid's habitat use and potential biological interactions with nonvascular and vascular flora. We found that citizen science significantly increased our understanding of the extent of occurrence, expanding the known distributional range by 195 km to the north and 153 km to the west. On the contrary, the values for the area of occupancy were not significant, but the occupancy overlap between different records was very low. We confirmed that H. clausa's habitat uses peatlands and although we have not provided evidence of pollination or movement of spores, we hypothesized, that the walking activity of H. clausa could help move sperm from mosses and pollen from the flowers of vascular plants, so they could act as potential pollinators. Citizen science can reduce and eliminate some scientific knowledge shortfalls and propose new ecological questions that could increase our knowledge of extreme ecosystems.