The Diptera are a very significant group in the decomposition and degeneration of plant and animal matter, are instrumental in the breakdown and release of nutrients back into the soil, and whose larvae supplement the diet of higher agrarian organisms.
The applied significance of the Diptera is as disease vectors, as agricultural pests, as pollinators and as biological control agents.
Palearctic habitats include meadows, prairies, mountain passes, forests, desert oases, seashores, sandy beaches, coastal lagoons, lakes, streams and rivers, bogs, fens, areas (including waters polluted by rotting waste, industrial emissions), urban areas, cattle, horse and poultry farms.
[1] Desert diptera include specialised species of Psychodidae, Nemestrinidae, Therevidae, Scenopinidae and Bombyliidae.
Larval stages of Diptera can be found in almost any aquatic or semiaquatic habitat They form an important fraction of the macro zoobenthos of most freshwater ecosystems.
[2] Many of them such as Bibionidae significantly may consume substantial amount of annual litter fall[3] and contribute to soil organic matter transformation.
For females to risk their lives on blood sucking while males abstain, is not a strategy limited to the mosquitoes; it also occurs in some other families, such as the Tabanidae.
Other bloodfeeding Diptera are Ceratopogonidae Phlebotominae Hippoboscidae, Hydrotaea and Philornis downsi (Muscidae), Spaniopsis and Symphoromyia Rhagionidae.
The larvae of Diptera feed on a diverse array of nutrients ; often these are different from those of adults, for instance the larvae of Syrphidae in which family the adults are flower-feeding are saprotrophs, eating decaying plant or animal matter, or insectivores, eating aphids, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects.
(Oestridae include the highest proportion of species whose larvae live as obligate parasites within the bodies of mammals.
These flies typically use army ants' raiding columns to flush out their prey, ground-dwelling Orthoptera.
[7][8] Swarm-based mating systems typically involve males flying in swarms to attract patrolling females.
An instance is Syrphidae often are brightly coloured, with spots, stripes, and bands of yellow or brown covering their bodies.
Deuterophlebia males have extremely long antennae which they employ when contesting territories over running water, waiting for females to hatch.
Families of acalyptrate flies exhibiting morphological development associated with agonistic behaviour include: Clusiidae, Diopsidae, Drosophilidae, Platystomatidae, Tephritidae, and Ulidiidae.
Some Empididae have an elaborate courtship ritual in which the male wraps a prey item in silk and presents it to the female to stimulate copulation.
It has been suggested that the ability to produce their own light is used by some predatory larvae as a lure for potential prey, although it also obviously makes themselves more susceptible to predation or parasitism.