Terry Wheeler

Degrees

B.Sc. (Memorial)
M.Sc. Ph.D. (Guelph)

Awards and Recognitions

C. Gordon Hewitt Award, Entomological Society of Canada (1999);
Macdonald Campus Award for Teaching Excellence (2000);
Principal’s Prize for Excellence in Teaching, McGill University (2000);
Alan Blizzard Award, Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2002)

Research Interests

In our lab we work at the intersection of taxonomy, phylogeny and ecology of insects, with a particular focus on flies, one of the most diverse orders of insects in the world. Our research discovers and describes new species and reconstructs their evolutionary relationships. With this taxonomic foundation in place, we can then address questions about the natural history, population structure and community ecology of flies, and use those fundamental patterns to assess the long term impacts of glaciation, and the short term impacts of land use change and climate change, on insect communities. Our current research projects are focused on arctic Canada, peatlands and suburban green spaces in Quebec, and the forests of Central and South America.

Current Research

Insect diversity at multiple scales: from genes to communities (NSERC Discovery Grant; NSERC Northern Research Supplement)
Zurqui All Diptera Biodiversity Inventory, Costa Rica (funded by US National Science Foundation)
Taxonomy and biogeography of Chloropidae (multiple projects with collaborators in Canada, USA, Europe)

Publications

View a list of current publications