Dr. Art Borkent

I am an insect taxonomist, studying a group of small flies, describing them and working on their evolutionary relationships (phylogeny). I prefer the word systematist and better yet, biosystematist to describe what I do because that catches my perspective and goals – to describe biodiversity and to interpret the various species’ biology, behaviour, ecology and so much more by studying their phylogeny. It is through that lens that so much of our world makes sense: as Theodosius Dobzhansky, a famous evolutionary biologist who in large measure, through his study of fruit flies, kicked started almost everything we know about genes, famously said “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution”. It is as true for the biological world as it is within the human family – history and relationships influence and make sense of much of who we are and what we do.

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