Entomology staff directory

Research interests

• Taxonomy and morphology of beetles (Coleoptera)
• Host associations of mycophagous Coleoptera
• Applications of digital technologies to descriptive taxonomy
• Large-scale approaches to species inventories

Current activities

• A comparative study of the male genitalia and postabdominal morphology of the superfamily Cucujoidea (Coleoptera) with C. J. Marshal
• MYCOL, an electronic database of fungus-beetle host associations and an associated digital library of fungus beetle images
• A book on the role of taxonomy in biodiversity exploration and conservation, tentatively entitled Taxonomic Renaissance: Environmental Enlightenment

Professor Wheeler's research contributions include beetle morphology and taxonomy (most recently, a two-part monographic revision of the species of Agathidium slime-mould beetles of North and Central America); species concepts (most recently a book edited with former student Rudolf Meier, Species Concepts and Phylogenetic Theory: A Debate, Columbia University Press, 2000); the role of taxonomy in biodiversity exploration and conservation (a book being currently written); systematics theory, especially character analysis; and associations of insects with fungi and slime-mould.

Employment history

1980 - 2004	Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA - Chair of the Entomology Department and Director of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium
2001 - 2004	U.S. National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia - Division Director for Environmental Biology
2004 - present	Natural History Museum - Keeper and Head of Entomology

Biographical details

From 2001 until 2004, he served at the U.S. National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia, first as director of the Systematic Biology Program and subsequently as Division Director for Environmental Biology where he managed programs in ecology, ecosystem science, LTER network, population biology, systematic biology, biodiversity surveys and inventories, PEET and others. During his NSF tenure he was involved the initiation or roll-out of several new programs including Planetary Biodiversity Inventories (PBI), Revisionary Syntheses in Systematics (RevSys), Assembling the Tree of Life (AToL), LINNE (Legacy Infrastructure Networks for Natural Environments) and the Evolutionary Synthesis Center and oversaw the re-organization of the Division of Environmental Biology. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the Willi Hennig Society and past president of the Association of Systematics Collections and the Coleopterists Society. He is a research associate of both the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and the U. S. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and is a member of the graduate faculties of zoology and entomology in Cornell University.

Publications

Wheeler, Q. D., Blackwell, M. (Editors). 1984. Fungus-Insect Relationships: Perspectives in Ecology and Evolution. New York: Columbia University Press.

Wheeler, Q. D. 1990. Ontogeny and character phylogeny. Cladistics 6: 225-264.

Wheeler, Q. D. 1990. Morphology and ontogeny of postembryonic larval Agathidium and Anisotoma (Coleoptera: Leiodidae). American Museum Novitates, 2986: 1-41.

Wheeler, Q. D., Novacek, M. J. (Editors). 1992. Extinction and Phylogeny. New York: Columbia University Press.

Wheeler, Q. D. 1995. Systematics, the scientific basis for inventories. Biodiversity and Conservation 4: 476-489.

Wheeler, Q. D. 1995. Systematics and biodiversity: policies at higher levels. BioScience, 45: 21-28.

Wheeler, Q. D. and Meier, R. (Editors). 2000. Species Concepts and Phylogenetic Theory: A Debate. New York: Columbia University Press

Wheeler, Q. D. 2004. Taxonomic triage and the poverty of phylogeny. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, 359: 571-583.

Wheeler, Q. D., Raven, P. H., Wilson, E. O. 2004. Taxonomy: Impediment or expedient? Science 305: 285.

Wheeler, Q. D., Miller, K. B. 2005. Slime-mold beetles of the genus Agathidium in North and Central America. Part I (Coleoptera: Leiodidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.  290: 1-95

Miller, K. B., Wheeler, Q. D. 2005. Slime-mold beetles of the genus Agathidium in North and Central America. Part II (Coleoptera: Leiodidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 291: 1-167