Author: Pensoft Editorial Team

Plants quick to let their flowers fade for protection, show new field experiments and microbiome

Microbes growing on flowers have adverse effects on their fruit yields. This is why plants are quick to shed their flowers, reveals a new study involving both field experiments and plant microbiome analyses.

The present study looked into the wild ginger in Japan (Alpinia japonica, Zingiberaceae). Its flowers open in the morning and wither around sunset, as many one-day flower plants do.
Photo by Shoko Sakai.

Microbes growing on flowers have adverse effects on their yields. This is why plants are quick to shed their flowers, reveals a new study involving both field experiments and plant microbiome analysis.

The findings – made by a joint team of researchers from the Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications (CREAF, Spain) and Kyoto University (Japan) – are published in the open-access scholarly journal Metabarcoding and Metagenomics.

Scientifically speaking, flowers are a reproductive structure of a plant. Unlike mammals, though, perennial plants develop those de novo every season and only retain them for as long as needed.

While a few earlier studies have already looked into the variation in flower lifespan among species, they were mainly concerned with the tradeoff between plants spending energy on producing and maintaining their flowers, and the benefit they would achieve from retaining their reproductive organs.

Most flowers complete their role and wither or drop within only several days or even less.
Photo by Shoko Sakai.

Prior to the present study, however, the team found another perspective to look at the phenomenon: why did plants invest their energy –  even if the ‘cost’ was minimal – to produce fragile flowers that would wither in a matter of days, rather than investing a bit more of it to produce a lot more durable ones, thereby increasing their reproductive success?

“Interestingly, flower lifespan is negatively correlated with temperature; the hotter the environment where they bloom, the shorter the period a plant retains them. The phenomenon has been known for a long time.

Then, at some point, I came up with the hypothesis that antagonistic microbes, such as bacteria and fungi growing on flowers after the flower bud opens, must be the driver that shortens the lifespan of a flower. I doubted that it was a coincidence that microbes grow faster in higher temperatures,”

comments Shoko Sakai, author of the present study.

Flowers provide various habitats for microbes. They attract pollinators by secreting nectar, which is rich in sugars, and often contains other nutrients, such as amino acids and lipids. The stigma is a germination bed for pollen grains connected to a growth chamber for pollen tubes. It maintains humidity and nutrients necessary for pollen tube growth. Not surprisingly, abundance of the microbes increases over time on individual flowers after it opens.

Before jumping to their conclusions, the scientists set out to conduct field experiments to see what microbial communities would appear on flowers if their longevity was prolonged.

To do this, they took microbes from old flowers of wild ginger (Alpinia japonica) – a species found in Japan and blooming in the early summer when the hot and humid weather in the country is ideal for microbial growth. Then, they transferred the microbes to other wild ginger plants, whose flowers had just opened.

In line with their initial hypothesis, the research team noted that the plant produced significantly fewer fruits, yet there were no visible symptoms on the flowers or fruits to suggest a disease. However, an analysis of the plants’ microbiomes revealed the presence of several groups of bacteria that were increasing with time. As these bacteria can also be found on the flower buds of flowers that have not been treated, the bacteria is categorised as “resident” for the plant.

“So far, flower characteristics have mostly been studied in the context of their interactions with pollinators. Recent studies have raised the question whether we have overlooked the roles of microbes in the studies of floral characteristics.

For example, flower volatiles – which are often regarded as a primary pollinator attractant – can also function to suppress antagonistic microbes. The impacts of microbes on plant reproductive ecology may be more deeply embedded in the evolution of angiosperms than we have considered,”

Sakai concludes.
Flowers have various organs rich in nutrients, and each organ harbours a distinct microbiome. Flower visitors transfer microbes between and within flowers.
Photo by Shoko Sakai.

***

Research article:

Jiménez Elvira N, Ushio M, Sakai S (2022) Are microbes growing on flowers evil? Effects of old flower microbes on fruit set in a wild ginger with one-day flowers, Alpinia japonica (Zingiberaceae). Metabarcoding and Metagenomics 6: e84331. https://doi.org/10.3897/mbmg.6.84331

***

Follow the Metabarcoding and Metagenomics (MBMG) journal on Twitter and Facebook (@MBMGJournal).

Venomous! New pit viper discovered in Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve, China

The discovery was published in the open-access journal ZooKeys as part of a new molecular phylogenetic analysis of the Asian pit vipers.

Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve, a World Heritage Site, lies in the transition zone from the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the Sichuan Basin in Sichuan Province, China, and occupies an area of 651 km2. The reserve is covered with well-preserved original forests, and numerous alpine lakes. Beautiful and picturesque, it is home to some rare animals, such as the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and Golden Snub-nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana).

Landscape in Jiuzhaigou National Park. Photo by Jie Du

The herpetological di­versity, in contrast to the mammals, is relatively low in the area due to the harsh alpine environment. To find out more about it, and to investigate the post-earthquake ecological system in the region, a group of researchers conducted a series of investigations in Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve. During their herpetological surveys, they collected some specimens of Gloydius, a genus of venomous pit vipers endemic to Asia, from Zharu Valley.

After running morphological and phylogenetic analyses, the scientists found out that these specimens in fact belonged to a yet-to-be-described species.

Holotype of Gloydius lateralis. Photo by Sheng-chao Shi.

“The new species is morphologically similar, and phylogenetically closely related to G. swild, another recently described species from Heishui, Aba, Sichuan, but differs from it by having larger eyes (related to the head) and a continuous regular brown stripe on each dorsolateral side of the body,” explained the corresponding author, Dr Jingsong Shi.

“Thus, we named it after its unique color pattern: Gloydius lateralis.”

Holotype of Gloydius lateralis. Photo by Sheng-chao Shi

The newly described snake feeds on small mammals, such as mice, and “is active on sunny days by the roadside in a hot, dry valley”, the researchers write in their study, which was published in the open-access scientific journal ZooKeys.

“The discovery of G. lateralis provides new insights into the diversity and the distribution patterns of Asian pit vipers”, they write, suggesting that the formation of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau might be one of the key factors to the geographical isolation of the alpine pit vipers in southwest China.

Landscapes in Jiuzhaigou National Park. Photo by Jie Du

Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve, where G. lateralis was found, receives millions of tourists every year. “The only known habitat of the new species is Zharu Valley, and it is now under touristic development,” the researchers point out. “Thus, warning signs are still needed to remind visitors to watch out for the venomous pit viper, since this and another pit viper species, Protobothrops jerdo­nii, are often found in grass or bushes on both sides of roads.”

Snakes’ thermoregulation needs make them more prone to vehicle collisions, which is why the research team highlights the necessity to remind drivers to slow down in order to avoid road killings.

Original source:

Zhang M-H, Shi S-C, Li C, Yan P, Wang P, Ding L, Du J, Plenković-Moraj A, Jiang J-P, Shi J-S (2022) Exploring cryptic biodiversity in a world heritage site: a new pitviper (Squamata, Viperidae, Crotalinae) from Jiuzhaigou, Aba, Sichuan, China. ZooKeys 1114: 59–76. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1114.79709

Lizards go north: Balkan wall lizard population found all the way in the Czech Republic

The northernmost population of the Balkan lizard, recently discovered in the Czech Republic, has proven to be genetically unique and variable.

The Czech Republic is a zoologically well-studied area, and its reptile fauna is not very rich. Therefore, the recent discovery of a new reptile species for the country, the Balkan wall lizard (Podarcis tauricus), came as a big surprise. This lizard inhabits areas of the Central and Western Balkans as far as Crimea, with isolated areas of occurrence in Hungary and northern Romania, so how did it get as far north as the Czech Republic? Fortunately, the genetics in much of the lizard’s range are relatively well-studied. Finding out where lizards from the Czech Republic fit genetically could reveal the origins of this northernmost population.

Podarcis tauricus in the wild – Váté písky near Bzenec, Czech Republic.

An analysis published by Czech herpetologists in the journal Biodiversity Data Journal shows that the lizards from the Czech population are genetically variable; therefore, the population was not established by the introduction of a single gravid female.

Geographical distribution of Podarcis tauricus. The green arrow shows the northernmost known locality (Váté písky, Czech Republic).

The population also has genetic “markers” not yet found elsewhere, although it is clearly related to populations from the Central and Western Balkans and Hungary. These findings suggest that this could be an original, possibly relict population.

Haplotype network, designed from 24 haplotypes of the cytb locus from 167 individuals of Podarcis tauricus and Podarcis gaigeae (Psonis et al. 2017; this study). Colours correspond to the country of the specimen’s geographical origin and each circle corresponds to a haplotype. The circle size is proportional to the number of individuals with the same haplotype. The number of individuals per haplotype is indicated. Due to the unequal size of cytb sequences from Psonis et al. (2017), only a fragment of 257 bp which was common for all 167 sequences was used for the haplotype network reconstruction. For this region of cytb locus, the sequences of our individuals from Czech Republic are identical to 18 individuals from Albania, Hungary, Kosovo and Serbia.

However, we cannot rule out recent introductions or spontaneous northward dispersal of the lizard associated with global climate change. Exotic species of animals and plants appear in the Czech Republic through various routes and tracing their origin is not always easy. Both intentional and unintentional introductions have been recorded for some reptiles, while some previously southern vertebrate and invertebrate species spread to the north spontaneously.

Portrait of Podarcis tauricus

The first genetic data on the origin of the northernmost population of the Balkan wall lizard suggest that the lizard can spread to the north naturally; however, further investigations are needed to support this tentative conclusion. 

Research article:

Rehák I, Fischer D, Kratochvíl L, Rovatsos M (2022) Origin and haplotype diversity of the northernmost population of Podarcis tauricus (Squamata, Lacertidae): Do lizards respond to climate change and go north? Biodiversity Data Journal 10: e82156. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.10.e82156

Top new species discoveries for the first half of 2022

The diversity is impressive, but what is even more amazing is how much more remains undiscovered.

In the world of biodiversity science, 2022 started with some great discoveries and a lot of hope. Here at Pensoft, we get to see a new species (or more!) make an appearance into the scientific world almost every day. The diversity is impressive, but what is even more amazing is how much more remains undiscovered.

With the first half of the year already behind us, here are the stellar new species that took the world by storm as soon as we published them.

The magical fairy wrasse

This rainbow-coloured fish is called Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa, or Rose-Veiled Fairy Wrasse, and it was found in the Maldives’ reefs. It can live 160 to 500 feet beneath the ocean’s surface in unexplored coral ecosystems dubbed “the twilight zone”. 

It was discovered within California Academy of Sciences‘ Hope for Reefs initiative, which is aimed at better understanding and protecting coral reefs around the world.

“Nobody knows these waters better than the Maldivian people,” says senior author and Academy Curator of Ichthyology Luiz Rocha. “Our research is stronger when it’s done in collaboration with local researchers and divers.”

Apart from its striking appearance, Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa also gained popularity as the first new-to-science species to be described by a Maldivian scientist.

“It has always been foreign scientists who have described species found in the Maldives, even those that are endemic, without much involvement from local scientists, says study co-author and Maldives Marine Research Institute biologist Ahmed Najeeb. “This time it is different.”

It is also one of the first species to have its name derived from the local Dhivehi language, ‘finifenmaa’ meaning ‘rose’, a nod to both its pink hues and the island nation’s national flower.

This beautiful fish is already being exploited through the aquarium hobbyist trade, a fact described as “unsettling” by the people who discovered it.

Published in ZooKeys.

The Taylor Swift millipede

How often is it that a millipede makes top news headlines? Well, Nannaria swiftae sure did.

Scientists Derek Hennen, Jackson Means, and Paul Marek, at Virginia Tech, U.S., described the new species in April, naming it after singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. “Her music helped me get through the highs and lows of graduate school, so naming a new millipede species after her is my way of saying thanks,” Derek Hennen says, admitting he has been her fan for years.

N. swiftae joins 16 other new species of twisted-claw millipedes described from the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. To find them, researchers traveled to 17 US states, checking under leaf litter, rocks, and logs. They then sequenced the DNA of the species they found and described them scientifically. They looked at over 1800 specimens collected on their field study or taken from university and museum collections!

These little-known invertebrates are somewhat tricky to catch, because they tend to remain buried in the soil, sometimes staying completely beneath the surface.

Most twisted-claw millipedes live on the forest floor, where they feed on decaying leaves and other plant matter. They also have a valuable role as decomposers: breaking down leaf litter, they release their nutrients into the ecosystem.

Published in ZooKeys.

The Greta Thunberg frog

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has been namesakes with a frog for half a year now. In 2018, Rainforest Trust celebrated its 30th anniversary by hosting an auction offering naming rights for some new-to-science species, including Pristimantis gretathunbergae, a black-eyed rainfrog from in eastern Panama.

The undisclosed auction winner wanted to name the frog in honor of Thunberg and her work in highlighting the urgency in preventing climate change. She has impressed global leaders and her work is drawing others to action for the climate.

The international team that discovered the new rainfrog was led by Abel Batista, Ph.D. (Panama) and Konrad Mebert, Ph.D. (Switzerland). They found the frog on Mount Chucanti, a sky island surrounded by lowland tropical rainforest in eastern Panama. Reaching its habitat in the cloud forest required access via horseback through muddy trails, hiking up steep slopes, by-passing two helicopters that crashed decades ago, and camping above 1000 m elevation.

Unfortunately, the frog’s remaining habitat is severely fragmented and highly threatened by rapid deforestation for plantations and cattle pasture. Rising temperatures are another threat as they could destroy its small mountain habitat. The Mount Chucanti region already has lost more than 30% of its forest cover over the past 10 years, and the scientists insist that conservation of the remaining habitat is critical to ensure the survival of the frog.

Published in ZooKeys.

The chocolate frog

Since we’re on the subject of frogs, how about one that almost looks like it’s not real?

Instantly gaining popularity as Chocolate Frog, Synapturanus danta is a curious little frog that was recently discovered in the Peruvian Amazon. Local people had long known about this tiny, burrowing frog with a long snout; one local name for it is rana danta, “tapir frog”, for its resemblance to the large-nosed Amazonian mammal.

“These frogs are really hard to find, and that leads to them being understudied,” says Michelle Thompson, a researcher in the Keller Science Action Center at Chicago’s Field Museum and one of the authors of the study describing the frog. “It’s an example of the Amazon’s hidden diversity, and it’s important to document it to understand how important the ecosystem functions.”

While the frogs are hard to see, they’re not hard to hear. “We just kept hearing this beep-beep-beep coming from underground, and we suspected it could be a new species of burrowing frog,” says Thompson. “But how do we get to it?”

Local guides who were familiar with the frogs led the researchers to peatland areas– wetlands carpeted with nutrient-rich turf made of decaying plant matter. “After 15 to 20 minutes of digging and looking for them, I heard Michelle screaming, and to me that could only mean that she and David had found the first adult,” says Germán Chávez, a researcher at Peru’s Instituto Peruano de Herpetología and the study’s first author.

The researchers used the physical specimens of the frogs, along with the recordings of their calls and an analysis of the frogs’ DNA, to confirm that they were a new species. They named them Synapturanus danta – Synapturanus is the name of the genus they belong to, and danta is the local word for “tapir.”

Published in Evolutionary Systematics.

The fabulous flaming-red snake

This magnificent non-venomous snake, previously unknown to science, was discovered in Paraguay. It belongs to the genus Phalotris, a group of snakes from central South America noted for their striking coloration with red, black, and yellow patterns.

Jean-Paul Brouard, one of the involved researchers, came across an individual of the new species by chance while digging a hole at Rancho Laguna Blanca in 2014. Together with his colleagues Paul Smith and Pier Cacciali, he described the discovery, naming the new snake Phalotris shawnella.

The species name recognizes two children – Shawn Ariel Smith Fernández and Ella Bethany Atkinson – who were born in the same year as the Fundación Para La Tierra (2008). They inspired the founders of the NGO to work for the conservation of Paraguayan wildlife, in the hope that their children can inherit a better world.

This new Phalotris snake is particularly attractive and can be distinguished from other related species in its genus by its red head in combination with a yellow collar, a black lateral band and orange ventral scales with irregular black spots.

Only known from three individuals, this species is endemic to the Cerrado forests of the department of San Pedro in east Paraguay. Its extreme rarity led the authors to consider it as “Endangered”, according to the conservation categories of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which means it is in imminent danger of extinction in the absence of measures for its protection.

Published in Zoosystematics and Evolution.

New study in children with language deficits highlights importance of voluntary imagination in language evolution

Contrary to the common assumption, it is voluntary imagination rather than speech that appears to define the pace of combinatorial language evolution

Chimpanzees make use of cobbles to break nuts, but they do not modify them. Homo habilis was one of the earliest hominin species that intentionally modified cobbles to manufacture the crude, Mode One choppers. Homo habilis was only able to break out large flakes from a cobble; its voluntary control of its mental template was quite crude. Homo erectus, on the other hand, was able to break off much smaller flakes and produce the fine, symmetrical, Mode Two hand axes. Therefore, Homo erectus was most likely capable of finer voluntary control of its mental template. Image credit: Andrey Vyshedskiy.

Did the boy bite the cat, or was it the other way around? 

When processing a sentence with several objects, one has to establish ‘who did what to whom’. When a sentence cannot be interpreted by recalling an image from memory, we rely on voluntary imagination to construct a novel mental image in our mind. 

In a previous study, the team of Dr. Andrey Vyshedskiy, a neuroscientist from Boston University, USA, hypothesized that this voluntary imagination ability has fundamental importance for combinatorial language acquisition. To test the hypothesis, the researchers designed a voluntary imagination intervention and administered it to 6,454 children with language deficiencies (age 2 to 12 years). 

In that three-year study, published in 2021, the scientists concluded that children, who were engaged with the voluntary imagination intervention, showed 2.2-fold improvement in combinatorial language comprehension compared to children with similar language deficiencies. These findings suggested that language can be improved by training voluntary imagination and confirmed the importance of the visuospatial component of language. 

In his latest work, now published in the open-science scholarly journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), Dr. Vyshedskiy builds on these experimental findings to address the question of language evolution and suggest that evolutionary acquisition of language was driven primarily by improvements of voluntary imagination, rather than the speech apparatus.

“Chimpanzees and bonobos can learn hundreds of words. However, apes that know the names of objects, colors, and sizes are not capable of identifying ‘a large red pencil’ among multi-colored, multi-sized pieces of Lego, crayons, and pencils. This suggests that apes cannot mentally integrate color, size and objects together. Thus, voluntary constructive imagination must have been acquired by humans after our ancestors split from chimpanzees 6 million years ago.

Evolutionary development of voluntary imagination can be traced back through the evolution of stone tools, since the process of hand ax manufacturing – for example – requires voluntary imagination of a future tool. 

Apes do not manufacture stone tools, further confirming their imagination limitations. 

Our ancestors started manufacturing crude Mode One choppers about 3.3 million years ago – the first indication of voluntary imagination ability. Then, two million years ago, the emergence of symmetrical Mode Two hand axes with a long cutting edge indicates a major improvement of both tool design and voluntary imagination. Later, approximately 400,000 years ago, the Neanderthals began manufacturing even better Mode Three tools, demonstrating even better voluntary imagination ability. Finally,  about 70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens dramatically extended their tool repertoire as they came up with bows and arrows, needles with eyes, flutes, and composite artworks. This is when most researchers recognize that humanity acquired the modern voluntary imagination ability.”

Dr. Vyshedskiy explains.

Dr. Vyshedskiy proposes that this step-wise development of voluntary imagination – and not the speech apparatus per se – was the key factor underlying the acquisition of modern combinatorial language. 

There are several additional lines of evidence suggesting dissociation of articulate speech and voluntary imagination. 

Firstly, there is significant genetic and archeological evidence that modern speech apparatus was acquired 600,000 years ago, which is quite a long time before acquisition of modern voluntary imagination 70,000 years ago. 

Secondly, mirroring phylogenetic sequences, typical children develop articulate speech by their second year, two years before they acquire the voluntary imagination necessary to comprehend spatial prepositions, recursion, and complex fairy tales. 

Thirdly, speech is not an obligatory component of combinatorial language at all. If early humans had voluntary imagination, they could have invented sign language. All formal sign languages include spatial prepositions and other recursive elements. This has been evidenced in the 1970s, when the largest natural experiment of language origin to date reported on 400 Nicaraguan deaf children from two schools who spontaneously invented a new combinatorial sign language in just a few generations. This means that the capacities of the speech apparatus could not have been a limiting factor in the acquisition of modern combinatorial language at all. 

Fourthly, articulate sounds can be generated by gray parrots and thousands of other songbird species. However, these birds do not acquire combinatorial language. So, evolution of sound articulation is independent from and also a simpler process than improving voluntary imagination. 

In conclusion, on the basis of children studies, neurological observations, archeological findings, combinatorial sign language invention by Nicaraguan deaf children, and variety of sound boxes in birds, Dr. Vyshedskiy argues that the evolution of hominin speech apparatus must have followed (rather than led to) the improvements in voluntary imagination. 

Contrary to the common assumption, it is voluntary imagination rather than speech that appears to define the pace of combinatorial language evolution.

***

Original source:

Vyshedskiy A (2022) Language evolution is not limited to speech acquisition: a large study of language development in children with language deficits highlights the importance of the voluntary imagination component of language. Research Ideas and Outcomes 8: e86401. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.8.e86401

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Genetically-enhanced biocontrols can help fight large invasive mammals

Genetic biocontrols could rapidly eradicate animals like rats, mice and rabbits. Others – like cats and foxes, would however take a lot longer.

But gene drives are not a one-size-fits-all solution

Invasive alien mammals can have catastrophic impacts on native flora and fauna, causing species extinctions and driving profound environmental change. Classical control methods such as poison baiting, trapping, or hunting are currently not feasible on a large scale, which is why researchers are looking for alternatives.

CRISPR-based genome engineering is often seen as a “silver bullet” for pest control. Despite the increasing interest in the development of this technology for invasive mammals like mice, rats, rabbits, feral cats, and foxes, studies have so far only focused on mice.

Scientists have been pondering whether genome editing technologies could help eradicate larger mammals, and if so, how long it would take.

Rabbit. Photo by Mark Philpott licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

In order to address these questions, a team of researchers from the University of Adelaide developed a mathematical model able to simulate the impact of gene drives on mammal populations at a landscape scale. Published in the open-access NeoBiota journal, their study is the first to estimate the time it would take to eradicate long-lived alien mammals.

Using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, the simulated gene drive relies on “molecular scissors” inserted into the Y-chromosome that target and slice up the X-chromosome at the right time during meiosis, so that only Y-chromosome carrying sperms are functional and can successfully fertilize the egg. In this way, the drive carrying males should only produce sons that also carry the molecular scissors on their Y-chromosome. Over multiple generations, females will become rarer and produce fewer offspring; as a result, the population size will fall.

Red fox. Photo by Rylee Isitt licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

This “X-shredder” drive has been successfully developed and demonstrated to suppress cage populations of malaria-carrying mosquitos, but has not yet been developed in mammals. The model shows that the X-shredder drive could potentially achieve landscape-scale eradication of mice, rats, rabbits, feral cats, and red foxes, but the probability of success and the time it would take to eradicate them vary greatly.

The researchers investigated the ability of the X-shredder drive to eradicate a population of 200,000 individuals of each species. “CRISPR-based gene drives offer novel solutions for controlling invasive alien species, which could ultimately extend eradication efforts to continental scales,” they concluded.

The method could be effective in small-sized pests, such as rodents and rabbits. The expected time to eradication is 18 years for mice, 19 years for rats, and 48 years for rabbits, with 90% population suppression achieved in around half those times.

However, the results suggest that gene drives are not a one-size-fits-all solution: they might not be so useful in larger species like cats and foxes.

“The probability of eradicating feral cats with gene drives is identical to flipping a coin, 50/50; and provided that the coin lands on the right side, it would take about 140 years to get rid of them,” says Dr. Aysegul Birand, part of the research team. “The probability of eradication is higher for foxes, but the wait is even longer.”

Original source: 

Birand A, Cassey P, Ross JV, Thomas PQ, Prowse TAA (2022) Scalability of genetic biocontrols for eradicating invasive alien mammals. NeoBiota 74: 93-103. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.74.82394

Can amateurs combat the threat of alien species? Tracking introduced species in the world of citizen science

How citizen scientists documented the spread of an alien mantis across Australia

Guest blog post by Matthew Connors

From the infamous cane toad to the notorious spotted lanternfly, we all know the drastic effects that introduced species can have on both ecosystems and agriculture.

In today’s interconnected world, these alien species are being moved around the globe more frequently than ever before.  Hitchhikers and stowaways on ships, planes, and other vehicles can cause irreversible and catastrophic damage to fragile native ecosystems and to us humans, and tens of billions of dollars are spent every year trying to control these invaders.

Spotted lanternfly. Photo by peterlcoffey licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

But one of the greatest problems for researchers and government bodies trying to combat these threats is that it can be incredibly difficult to monitor the invaders even when we know they’re here.

So how on earth is anyone supposed to detect when a new species has invaded?  Many of these organisms are small, inconspicuous, and difficult to identify, and by the time they’ve been spotted it’s often already too late to act.

What if there was a way to quickly and easily find invasive organisms all over the world?  Enter the world of Citizen Science, where anybody and everybody can produce important scientific data without even leaving their backyard.  Just by taking a photograph of an organism and uploading it to a citizen science platform like iNaturalist or QuestaGame, amateurs and enthusiasts can provide scientists with invaluable records from across the globe.

A screenshot from the iNaturalist homepage, captured on July 7, 2022.

Back in 2015, when amateur naturalist Adam Edmonds spotted an unusual praying mantis in his garden, he took a photo and posted it to the Australian citizen science platform BowerBird.  When even the local experts didn’t recognise it, a specimen was sent off to mantis specialist Graham Milledge.  He confirmed that it was a newly introduced species – the South African Mantis (Miomantis caffra).

Miomantis caffra, an adult female from Victoria, Australia. Photo by Adam Edmonds

Since then, this alien mantis has spread across Australia from Sydney to Perth.  And every step of the way, citizen scientists have been there to document its spread.

Last month, all of these citizen science records were compiled by entomologist Matthew Connors of James Cook University (Queensland, Australia) into the first comprehensive report of the mantis’s presence in Australia.  Understanding where the species has spread and what impacts it has had on native species is crucial to managing and controlling it.

The introduced South African Mantis (Miomantis caffra) preys on a native Harlequin Bug (Dindymus versicolor) in Geelong, Australia.  Photo by Kelly Clitheroe

The research found that the South African Mantis has spread through suburban habitats in three Australian states (Victoria, New South Wales, and Western Australia) and one offshore territory (Norfolk Island).  It probably arrived in these regions as egg cases attached to plants and equipment, and it can now be found in high numbers, especially during late summer and early autumn.  Despite this, it appears to be highly localised and has only been recorded in suburbia, and furthermore there has not been any noticeable impact on native species.

Miomantis caffra, egg case (ootheca) from Victoria, Australia. Photo by Ken Walker

None of this research would have been possible without citizen scientists – the dedicated community of enthusiasts and amateurs who share their finds with researchers online.  Photographs from citizen science platforms and social media sites have been instrumental in showing just how far the South African Mantis has spread.  In fact, more than 90% of the records of the species come from citizen scientists, and without them we would barely know anything.

These days, more and more researchers are realising just how useful citizen science can be.  As well as tracking introduced species, citizen scientists have rediscovered rare creatures, documented never-before-seen behaviours, and even discovered completely new species.

Miomantis caffra, an adult female from Victoria, Australia. Photo by Matthew Connors

This latest research, published in the Journal of Orthoptera Research, is among a handful of recent studies that have gone a step further though – instead of just being a source of data, the citizen scientists were invited to take part in the entire research process, from data collection all the way through to publishing.  After all, they did all of the fieldwork!

Research like this is proof that anyone can be a citizen scientist in today’s day and age – so what are you waiting for?

Research article: Connors MG, Chen H, Li H, Edmonds A, Smith KA, Gell C, Clitheroe K, Miller IM, Walker KL, Nunn JS, Nguyen L, Quinane LN, Andreoli CM, Galea JA, Quan B, Sandiford K, Wallis B, Anderson ML, Canziani EV, Craven J, Hakim RRC, Lowther R, Maneylaws C, Menz BA, Newman J, Perkins HD, Smith AR, Webber VH, Wishart D (2022) Citizen scientists track a charismatic carnivore: Mapping the spread and impact of the South African Mantis (Miomantidae, Miomantis caffra) in Australia. Journal of Orthoptera Research 31(1): 69-82. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.31.79332

Now accepting contributions on the impact of alien insects in the Alpine ecosystem

Alpine Entomology invites researchers to submit their work assessing the possible impacts of invasive insects on mountain areas.

Invasive insects can be vectors of diseases, cause damage to agriculture and forestry, and threaten native biodiversity. Recognising this dramatic impact, the open-access journal Alpine Entomology, published by Pensoft on behalf of the Swiss Entomological Society, opened a dedicated topical collection that is already accepting submissions.

Impacts of alien insects in the Alpine ecosystem invites scientists working on invasive species and plant-insect interactions in Alpine regions to openly publish their research articles, review articles, and short communications on, among others, trends or changes in biogeography of emblematic species, shifts in current distributions, or niche replacement.

The new article collection will be edited by Oliver Martin of ETH Zürich, subject editor and editorial board member at Alpine Entomology, Stève Breitenmoser, and Dominique Mazzi.

“Recent years have seen a worldwide increase in invasions by alien species, especially plants and insects, mostly due to trade and climate change,” they explain, noting that although numerous studies exist on the topic, few of them focus on the Alpine areas.

“With this collection we hope to generate exciting discussions and exchange within the scientific community interested in this very particular and sensitive ecosystem,” the editors say, inviting authors to submit their manuscripts assessing the possible impacts of invasive insects on mountain areas.

The collection will remain open for submissions for the next two years. In the meantime, the accepted manuscripts will be published on a rolling basis, as soon as they are ready for publication.

Alpine Entomology is currently accepting submissions to one other topical collection, Trends in arthropods of alpine aquatic ecosystems.

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Scientists identify gaps in the protection of Vietnam’s amphibians

A new study assessing the status of amphibians in Vietnam found a high level of species richness and local endemism.

As was highlighted in the foreword to the renowned WWF Greater Mekong Report 2021, written by Prof. Dr. Thomas Ziegler, Curator for Herpetology, Ichthyology, and Invertebrates, at Cologne Zoo (Köln, Germany), there is an urgent need for more studies that identify the gaps in species conservation. 

In a new scientific article, published in the open-access peer-reviewed journal Nature Conservation, Ziegler and his team present precisely such an analysis, focusing on the world’s most threatened vertebrate class: the amphibians. The share of amphibian taxa classified as threatened with extinction – 41% – is a clear indicator for the decline in global biodiversity and a warning sign for significant environmental degradation. 

Ingerophrynus galeatus. Photo by Anna Rauhaus

The scientists examined the threat status of the Vietnamese amphibians, building on the bachelor thesis of Marie Krzikowski of the University of Cologne, Germany.

One of the amphibian breeding facilities at the Cologne Zoo’s Terrarium section with offspring (larvae, eggs, terrestrial subadults) of the threatened Vietnamese Crocodile Newt (Tylototriton vietnamensis), which is successfully bred at the Zoo.

They identified 275 amphibian species known from Vietnam, noting that the number is likely to go up. The country is classified as a biodiversity hotspot, and the rate of discovering new amphibian species remains relatively high. Of these 275 species, 95 (35%) species are endemic to the country, with more than half of them reported exclusively from a single locality, which makes them especially vulnerable to extinction. Vietnam’s Central Highlands were revealed as the region with the highest species diversity (130 species), the most regionally endemic species (26 of total 67 regionally endemic species), and the most species classified as threatened by the IUCN Red List (11 species), which highlights it as a site of particular amphibian conservation concern.

Tylototriton vietnamensis. Photo by Anna Rauhaus

In terms of threat status, 50 of the 275 species recorded so far from Vietnam (18%) are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as threatened with extinction. These include 27 endemic species. Most of them are frogs, followed by salamanders, where 60% of the listed species are classified as threatened with extinction.

Alarmingly, 13 endemic species, including two threatened species, have been recorded exclusively from unprotected areas. For two-thirds of Vietnam’s endemic amphibians, there is no conservation data available, as their IUCN Red List status is either missing or outdated.

Tylototriton ziegleri. Photo by Thomas Ziegler

According to data from the Zoological Information Management System, 29 (11%) of the total 275 species reported to occur in Vietnam are represented in global zoos, including five threatened species, with the highest diversity concentrated in zoos in Europe and North America. 

These facts, now compiled in the overview paper by Marie Krzikowski, Truong Q. Nguyen, Cuong T. Pham, Dennis Rödder, Anna Rauhaus, Minh D. Le and Thomas Ziegler, reveal for the first time some obvious gaps in conservation. Importantly, they will provide a directory to authorities, conservationists, rescue centers, and zoos, so that they can follow up with appropriate actions.

Paramesotriton deloustali. Photo by Thomas Ziegler

In particular, the conservation of microendemic species can only be addressed by organizations, NGOs or partner institutes on site, for example in the form of field work, regulatory support or protected area establishment. 

Where species are at risk of disappearing rapidly, for example, species with a very limited distribution range, the establishment of ex-situ programs by local partners in cooperation with international zoos could help, in addition to in-situ conservation measures as part of the IUCN’s One Plan Approach, which combines in-situ and ex-situ efforts and various expertises for the optimum protection of a species.

Research article:

Krzikowski M, Nguyen TQ, Pham CT, Rödder D, Rauhaus A, Le MD, Ziegler T (2022) Assessment of the threat status of the amphibians in Vietnam – Implementation of the One Plan Approach. Nature Conservation 49: 77-116. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.49.82145