Abstract
Sphaeroceridae were collected in the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, in July 1988, and their distributional patterns were examined to test the hypothesis that the archipelago was the site of a Wisconsinan glacial refugium. A total of 27 species of Sphaeroceridae was identified. Ten of these species show widespread Holarctic distributions, four species are widespread across North America, seven species are restricted to North America west of the Rocky Mountains, three species are restricted to the coastal forest west of the Coast Range, and three species are supralittoral along the coast. There is no indication of endemism or relict distributions on the islands; the sphaerocerid fauna is similar to that found on the adjacent mainland. The most parsimonious explanation for the origin of the present sphaerocerid fauna of the archipelago is postglacial colonization from mainland North America. The sphaerocerid distribution pattern was compared with patterns for other Diptera and Coleoptera from the region. In general, the Sphaeroceridae corroborate the pattern seen in most other insect taxa, with postglacial dispersal from mainland source areas accounting for the present sphaerocerid fauna of the Queen Charlotte Islands.
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