Category: Uncategorized

Fauna Europaea started in 2000 as an EC-FP5 four-year project, delivering its first release in 2004. After 14 years of steady progress and successful participations in several EC projects, as a part of the EC-FP7 European Biodiversity Observation Network project (EU BON), to increase the general awareness of the work done by the contributors and to extend the general dissemination of the Fauna Europaea results, the Biodiversity Data Journal has applied its novel e-Publishing tools to prepare data papers for all 56 major taxonomic groups.

Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including important synonyms) of all living European land and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at country level, and some additional information. The Fauna Europaea project covers about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 species name. This represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many users in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education.

‘Contributions on Fauna Europaea’ is the second series launched by the Biodiversity Data Journal after the Checklist of British and Irish Hymenoptera and the first one that embraces thematic data-papers structured in a common pattern extracted from a large database. This novel publication model will assemble in a single-issue 56 data-papers on different taxonomic groups covered by the Fauna Europaea project in the period 2000-2014 and a range of accompanying papers highlighting various aspects of this project (gap-analysis, design, taxonomic assessments, etc.).

This is the first collection of data-papers of this scale. It will formalise and effectively publish the results of nearly 500 contributors building the largest European animal (taxonomic) database. The new publication model provides a reliable mechanism for citation and bibliographic indexing of large and uniformly structured databases.

“The publication of Fauna Europaea data papers brings a number of benefits for science, for example it stimulates experts to hand-over descriptive details on their groups, triggers new ways of community networking and participation, motivates experts to update their data, supports a better documentation of their achievements, including issues like ‘micro-publications’, and increase an ownership feeling with the associated effort” said Dr Yde de Jong, coordinator of the Fauna Europaea and Pan-European Species directories Infrastructure (PESI) projects.

The launch of this large collection of data papers coincides with one more cutting-edge innovation of the Biodiversity Data Journal, the publication of an API, a first of its kind, to import complex and data-rich manuscripts, which include text, data, images, in-text citations, references, in fact anything that a manuscript may contain.

“I am happy that these exciting innovations coincided with the first birthday of the Biodiversity Data Journal. Just a year ago we launched this new concept with the motto: Making your data count! These novel approaches and tools are an excellent example how our concept evolved!” comments Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Managing Director of Pensoft Publishers.

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Original Sources:

de Jong Y, Verbeek M, Michelsen V, Bjørn P, Los W, Steeman F, Bailly N, Basire C, Chylarecki P, Stloukal E, Hagedorn G, Wetzel F, Glöckler F, Kroupa A, Korb G, Hoffmann A, Häuser C, Kohlbecker A, Müller A, Güntsch A, Stoev P, Penev L (2014) Fauna Europaea – all European animal species on the web.Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e4034. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e4034

Gibson D, Bray R, Hunt D, Georgiev B, Scholz T, Harris P, Bakke T, Pojmanska T, Niewiadomska K, Kostadinova A, Tkach V, Bain O, Durette-Desset M, Gibbons L, Moravec F, Petter A, Dimitrova Z, Buchmann K, Valtonen E, de Jong Y (2014) Fauna Europaea: Helminths (Animal Parasitic). Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e1060. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e1060

 

 

Additional information:

The Fauna Europaea project (EVR1-1999-20001) has been funded by the European Commission for a period of four years (1 March 2000 – 1 March 2004) within the Fifth Framework Programme (5FP). Fauna Europaea has assembled a database of the scientific names and distribution of all living multicellular European land and fresh-water animals. The publication of the data papers was supported by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) projects Virtual Biodiversity Research and Access Network for Taxonomy (ViBRANT) and European Biodiversity Observation Network project (EU BON).

Pensoft Publishers specialize in academic and professional book and journal publishing, mostly in the field of biodiversity science and natural history. The Biodiversity Data Journal(BDJ) and the associated Pensoft Writing Tool (PWT), were launched by Pensoft as the first workflow ever to put together article authoring, community peer-review, publishing and dissemination within a single online collaborative platform.

The classical treatise “Flora of Northumberland and Durham” by Nathaniel John Winch is re-published through the innovativeAdvanced Books platform as an example of combining modern information technology together with historical scholarship to create a new sort of resource and data re-use. This publication will be supporting ongoing research on the botany of the region, which can be seen as a model for other regions in Europe.

The on-line semantically enriched re-publication marries the meticulous detail of old books with the interconnectedness of the internet bringing advantages of the digitization and markup efforts such as data extraction and collation, distribution and re-use of content, archiving of different data elements in relevant repositories and so on.

“Historic biodiversity literature is not just of cultural interest, it can be used to chart biogeographic change and help us understand the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity. Even if we are trying to predict future scenarios for biodiversity, understanding the changes of the past will help understand the changes we should expect in the future” said Dr Quentin Groom from the Meise Botanical Garden, Belgium, who initiated the project and marked up the original text.

The North-east of England has seen many changes since the publication of Winch’s Flora. In the 19th Century the area was a powerhouse of the industrial revolution. It was an important coal mining area and significant for the production of iron and steel. It was also a centre for industries such as shipbuilding and engineering. In contrast the uplands in the west of the region were some of the most isolated areas in England, covered in blanket bog and rarely visited.

Since that time heavy industry and mining have declined, but the population has continued to grow. Agriculture and forestry have become mechanized changing the countryside perhaps beyond the recognition of Winch. Many of the plants and localities he mentions have disappeared and a large number of new species have been introduced. The local botanists are still very active in the region. With GPS systems and modern maps they are mapping theregion’s flora in ever more detail.

The extensive efforts of Quentin Groom from the Botanic Garden Meise and editor of this re-publication combined with the cutting-edge technologies for semantic enhancements used by Pensoft’s Advanced Books platform, have resulted in additional details including links to the original citations and coordinates of the mentioned localities. In some cases the habitat that Winch described for a locality differs dramatically from what can be found in the same location nowadays.

The flora, for example, frequently mentions Prestwick Carr, an area of lowland bog, once full of rare species. Sadly it was largely drained just thirty years after the publication of the flora. Yet in recent years the Northumberland Wildlife Trust has been working to restore the bog to its former glory. “When reading Winch’s flora, it is easy to see what has been lost, but more importantly what remains to be conserved”, comments Groom.

The re-publication of Winch’s flora is just one step towards fully understanding all the impacts on wild plants of all the environmental changes that have occurred since the 19th century. Nevertheless, digitization of this flora not only tells us about plants but also about the history of science. Between the lines of this flora one can see a rudimentary understanding of ecology and the beginnings of research on phytogeography.

Consider that in 1831 Charles Darwin set sail on the Beagle, collecting and cataloguing biodiversity around the world, much as Winch had done in North-east England over the preceding 30 years. Field botany at the time was not just a hobby, but a serious pursuit that led to many new discoveries.

Understanding the causes of biodiversity change is only possible if you have data over a long period. The North-east England has an enviable botanical history dating back to William Turner (1508-1568), the so-called, Father of English Botany, who came from Morpeth in Northumberland. Yet he was only the first in a long list of North-eastern botanists, including John Wallis (1714-1793), Nathaniel John Winch (1769-1838), John Gilbert Baker (1834-1920), George Ralph Tate (1805-1871), Gordon Graham and George Swan (1917). Their publications and the works of many others have contributed to a large corpus of literature on the region’s flora.

The re-publication is supported by the FP7 funded EU project European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON).

 

Original Source:

Winch N (2014) Flora of Northumberland and Durham. Advanced Books: e4002. doi:10.3897/ab.e4002

 

Additional Information:

The Advanced Books platform is launched by Pensoft to publish new books or re-publish such previously available in paper or PDF only, in an advanced and semantically enhanced HTML and XML formats, to accelerate open access, data publication, mining, sharing and reuse. Advanced Books builds on the novel approaches developed by Pensoft’s journals.

This re-publication of the “Flora of Northumberland and Durham” originally published in 1831 by Nathaniel John Winch is supported by the FP7 funded EU project European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) (Grant agreement No 308454

 

A team of Iranian researchers from the Rice Research Institute of Iran have discovered that Gynnodomorpha permixtana, a well-known moth species from Europe and Asia, has changed its host preferences in order to adjust to Iran’s northern region environmental conditions. The importance of this adaptation for biological control of problematic weeds in rice fields and the biology of the moth on new host plant have been described in the open access journal Nota Lepidopterologica.

The larvae of G. permixtana have been so far reported to feed on the seeds and flowers of plant species such as water-plantain, eyebright, lousewort, bitter root and European yellow-rattle, which are weeds commonly present across Europe and Asia. A new study of the populations in northern Iran, however has revealed a new host – Sagittaria trifolia, commonly known as arrowhead.

This new discovery suggests that climatic and environmental conditions in northern regions of Iran resulted in the choice of a new new host plant, and provides an exciting insight into how adaptation mechanisms work.

Arrowheads are groups of problematic perennial broadleaf weeds that thrive in rice fields and waterways. Favorable climatic condition after rice harvesting results in continued activity and thriving populations throughout the year.

The economic importance of this weed has prompted researchers from the Rice Research Institute of Iran to seek for possible solutions for the management of arrowhead. Their studies have revealed that the larvae of a certain moth species feeding on the fruits and seeds of the problematic weed, can lead to a dramatic decrease of its germination potential.

After this discovery the moth was sent for identification to Dr Leif Aarvik from the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, who have diagnosed the species as the commonly known G. permixtana, which was in this case demonstrating a very uncommon host preference.

‘To our surprise, it looks like this moth chose new host plant in Iran. This moth was reported in 2009 from the northern regions of the country, but its host plant was unknown. Its usual host plants, such as water-plantain, also grow in Iran but peculiarly we couldn’t find its damage symptoms on them. That made this moth host range and biology in Iran rather mysterious at that point, and the recent discovery of arrowheads as its preferred host in the region brings even more peculiarity in the story.’ commented the lead author of the study Atousa Farahpour Haghani a Phd student from, Rice Research Institute of Iran.

‘Many factors can possibly influence host plant choice including food quality and quantity, climatic conditions, synchronization, physiological conditions in both insect and food plant, genetic modifications etc. Some of these factors are not stable and change in different environmental conditions, so an insect can change its choice of food plant on the basis of seeking the most beneficial complex of factors. It seems that in the northern regions of Iran, and luckily for rice crops, the problematic arrowheads present the best choice for G. permixtana.’ added Haghani.

Original source:

Atousa Farahpour Haghani, Bijan Yaghoubi, Farzad Majidi-Shilsar, Naser Davatghar, Leif Aarvik. 2014. The biology ofGynnidomorpha permixtana (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae) onSagittaria trifolia L. (Alismataceae) in paddy fields in Iran. Nota Lepidopterologica. 37(2): 113-121 | DOI 10.3897/nl.37.7708

A new study led by a PhD researcher at The University of Western Australia has revealed that parts of the iconic Galapagos Islands have been overrun by invasive plants from other parts of the world.

“People may be shocked that a place considered so iconic for biodiversity is so overrun with weeds in some areas despite ongoing control effort by National Park rangers, but this is really a global story,” lead author from the UWA School of Plant Biology Mandy Trueman said.

The results published in the open access journal Neobiota confirm that in the humid highland part of Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos National Park, nearly half of the canopy of the vegetation is comprised of non-native trees, shrubs and grasses.

“These invaders compete with native plants for light and water and can change the environment so that both flora and fauna are affected,” Mandy said. “These invasions are one of the factors threatening Galapagos species, many of which occur nowhere else in the world.”

The core outcome from the study is a map and associated database that details the abundance of both introduced and native species over the landscape. This information is of great importance to managers.

The Ministry of Environment through the Galapagos National Park Directorate, within the introduced and invasive species control program has made great efforts to control invasive species and replace them with natives. These efforts have resulted in the recovery of some areas of high ecological value. They annually manage 400 hectares per year for the worst invaders – blackberry, guava and cedrela.

Also endemic plants propagated in the nursery of the Galapagos National Park are used by park rangers for reforestation. The Galapagos National Park Directorate has also initiated studies into potential biological control agents for blackberry, which is considered the worst invader.

Heinke Jäger, who is based in Galapagos with the Charles Darwin Foundation, explained the importance of knowing where different plant invasions have occurred so that decisions can be made about how to manage them.

“The reality is that humans take plants to new places and that can change the nature of those places forever. Islands are particularly susceptible to these changes,” Heinke said. “Eventually some native species will lose out against the non-native invaders. This is a reality that conservation managers in many parts of the world need to deal with.”

“It was a real privilege to spend all that time walking in the highlands in the company of giant tortoises, getting to know the Galapagos plants,” Mandy said. “There are still a lot of native species present, and I hope this study can help managers decide where to take action to protect our precious native flora and fauna.”

Original Source:

Trueman M, Standish R, Orellana D, Cabrera W (2014) Mapping the extent and spread of multiple plant invasions can help prioritise management in Galapagos National Park. NeoBiota 23: 1-16. doi: 10.3897/neobiota.23.7800

 

Contact:

Mandy Trueman
(UWA School of Plant Biology – now based in Darwin)
Tel: (+61 4) 13 519471
Email: truemandy@gmail.com

Heinke Jäger
(Galapagos, Ecuador)
Tel: (+593) 5 2526146 or 2527013 Ext. 152

 

The week-long discussions and decisions of the Nomenclature Section of the XVIII International Botanical Congress took place in Melbourne, Australia in July 2011. This meeting is held every six years and it is where the world’s premier experts on the rules for naming algae, fungi and plants get together to debate and update the rule book for naming the organisms they study. This is the primary product of the meeting, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, which was published in 2012. The other important product is the official report for the historical record, which has just been published as an open-access forum paper in PhytoKeys.

Several significant decisions were made at this meeting, most visibly the change of the title of the rules of nomenclature from the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature – which implies it applies only to plants – to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants – which accurately reflects its scope. This change had been particularly desired by mycologists, the scientists who study fungi.

There were other major changes, foremost among them the possibility to publish new names of algae, fungi, and plants in electronic form only. This means that printed copies, which had previously been mandatory, are no longer required. Another break with tradition was to allow English to be used as an alternative to Latin when publishing formal descriptions of organisms new to science. Previously only Latin could be used.

Co-author Nicholas Turland said “Permitting electronic-only publication was arguably the most important decision made in Melbourne, bringing taxonomy into the 21st century and the electronic age. As for Latin, it has become increasingly difficult to use and is often regarded as an irrelevant anachronism by modern scientists. The meeting clearly wanted an alternative.”

The report was co-authored by Christina Flann, Species 2000, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands; Nicholas J. Turland, Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Germany; and Anna M. Monro, Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, Canberra, Australia. Production of the report was supported by funds from the International Association for Plant taxonomy (IAPT; http://www.iapt-taxon.org/index_layer.php), while its publication as an open-access forum paper was sponsored by Pensoft.

The meeting in Melbourne was well attended, especially in view of the distances many people had to travel. There were 204 delegates representing 56 countries. The geographical composition was uneven with a predictably high number from Australia (about one-third) and about as many from other Anglophone countries.

Co-author Christina Flann said “The much lower African, Asian, and Central and South American presence is far from ideal. These inequalities have deep historical roots and are compounded by uneven access to funding to attend the meeting.” She went on to note “On this occasion there was a strong female presence in leadership positions, despite the ratio of delegates still being skewed toward the male side; about one-third were women. Dr. Sandra Knapp, from the Natural History Museum, London, did an exemplary job in the role of President of the meeting.”

Original Source:

Flann C, Turland N, M. Monro A (2014) Report on botanical nomenclature—Melbourne 2011 XVIII International Botanical Congress, Melbourne: Nomenclature Section, 18-22 July 2011. PhytoKeys 41: 1-289. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.41.8398

At the stroke of a pen a New Zealand endemic tree has for the last 31 years been incorrectly regarded the same as a group of ‘weedy’ Australian shrubs and small trees. A New Zealand botanist has completed a 15-year study to reveal some surprises and discover astonishing cryptic diversity behind what was long considered a single tree species. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

Known to botanists as Kunzea ericoides, this species was one of the many discoveries made in the north-western South Island of New Zealand by Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville during the first voyage of the Astrolabe (1826-1829).

Initially described by French Professor of botany Achille Richard as Leptospermum ericoides, this species and the allied New Zealand endemic Leptospermum sinclairii were merged in 1983 with three other Australian species under the oldest available name (L. ericoides) as a new combination in the related genus Kunzea.

The saying that ‘bad taxonomy kills’ could not be more true, as the decision to merge the Australian and New Zealand species into the one shared species –Kunzea ericoides – resulted in absolute mayhem as a range of important New Zealand trees and shrubs were now regarded as identical to their distant Australian relatives all of which are serious agricultural pests known there as Burgan.

The present study draws on data obtained from experimental hybridisations, cytological investigations, modern molecular analyses and ecological studies published elsewhere by the author of this revision Dr Peter J. de Lange. The PhytoKeys treatment by de Lange concludes that Kunzea ericoides is not shared between Australia and New Zealand; confirms the distinctiveness of the narrow-range rhyolite rock endemic K. sinclairii; and elevates another much misunderstood variety to species rank as K. linearis.

De Lange also recognises further seven species new to science. One, Kunzea robusta is actually the most common Kunzea in New Zealand which despite being first recognised as distinct by the missionary botanist William Colenso in the 1840s, was denied formal recognition for some 170 years until now. Aside from Kunzea robusta de Lange recognises two other common new tree species (K. amathicola and K. serotina), and another four narrow-range endemics – K. salterae, K. tenuicaulis, K. toelkenii, and K. triregensis. One of these species, K. tenuicaulis is known only from active geothermal fields.

Aside from the recognition of 10 endemic New Zealand species from what had been regarded as one in 1983, de Lange also reveals that the indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand the Maori already knew of many of these species, which they recognised by names which referred to their growth habit or wood properties.

It is shown that far from being serious agricultural weeds all the New Zealand Kunzea are important keystone species, either forming their own distinct forest types or helping to heal damaged forest. Furthermore the New Zealand Kunzea species provide an important habitat for a wealth of endemic geckos, orchids and fungi – a far cry indeed from their past much undeserved ‘weed’ status.

“This paper is also a brilliant showcase of how useful is the brand new PhytoKeys publishing platform for the advancement of taxonomy. Once published taxonomic treatments of new species and any nomenclatural changes are automatically available in advanced open access, easy to find, and are stored in various data repositories in reusable format. Such wide availability of data helps for mistakes and misunderstanding regarding previous confusions in the taxonomy of a certain species to be avoided in future,” comments Prof. Lyubomir Penev, managing director of Pensoft Publishers.

Original Source:

de Lange PJ (2014) A revision of the New Zealand Kunzea ericoides (Myrtaceae) complex. PhytoKeys 40: 1-185. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.40.7973

 

Additional Information:

This publication was made possible by the generous support of the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network (http://www.nzpcn.org.nz).

A new species of the Boophis rappiodes group is described from the hidden streams of Ankarafa Forest, northwest of Madagascar. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The new species Boophis ankarafensis is green in colour with bright red speckling across its head and back, but what truly distinguishes this species is a high genetic divergence and different call with a triple click, compared to the usual double.

All individuals were detected from the banks of two streams in Ankarafa Forest. The new species represents the only member of the B. rappiodes group endemic to Madagascar’s western coast, with the majority of other members known from the eastern rainforest belt. Despite its conspicuous call, it has not been detected from other surveys of northwest Madagascar and it is likely to be a local endemic to the peninsula.

The ranges of two other amphibian species also appear restricted to Sahamalaza, and so the area seems to support a high level of endemicity. Although occurring inside a National Park, this species is highly threatened by the continuing decline in the quality and extent of its habitat.

Due to these threats it is proposed that this beautiful new species should be classified as Critically Endangered according to the IUCN Red List criteria.

Original Source:

Penny SG, Andreone F, Crottini A, Holderied MW, Rakotozafy LS, Schwitzer C, Rosa GM (2014) A new species of the Boophis rappiodes group (Anura, Mantellidae) from the Sahamalaza Peninsula, northwest Madagascar, with acoustic monitoring of its nocturnal calling activity. ZooKeys 435: 111-132. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.435.7383

A new study provides an exciting insight into the Late Cretaceous and the diversity and distribution of the toothless ‘dragon’ pterosaurs from the Azhdarchidae family. The research was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The Azhdarchidan pterosaurs derive their name from the Persian word for dragon – Aždarha. Interestingly, this derived and rather successful group of pterosaurs included some of the largest known flying animals of all times, with a wingspan reaching between 10 and 12 m.

‘Dragon’ pterosaurs had a worldwide distribution once and were the last of their kind to survive on the planet, until some 60 mya. They dominated the skies during the Late Cretaceus and unlike their predecessors, were characteristically toothless.

“This shift in dominance from toothed to toothless pterodactyloids apparently reflects some fundamental changes in Cretaceous ecosystems, which we still poorly understand,” comments the author of the study Dr Alexander Averianov, Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Generally fossil record of pterosaurs is patchy and confined mostly to sedimentary deposits known as Konservat-Lagerstätten where exceptional depositional conditions facilitated preservation of fragile pterosaur bones. Unfortunately, such Lagerstätten are very rare for the Late Cretaceous when most of the evolutionary history of Azhdarchidae took place, which makes these exciting creatures exceptionally hard to study.

“Azhdarchidae currently represent a real nightmare for paleontologists: most taxa are known from few fragmentary bones, which often do not overlap between named taxa, the few articulated skeletons are poorly preserved, and some of the best available material has remained undescribed for forty years.” explains Dr Averianov about the difficulties studying the group.

Despite these difficulties, the number of localities were azhdarchidan pterosaurs were found is impressive and undoubtedly reflect the important role they played in the Cretaceous ecosystems. These flying giants likely inhabited a large variety of environments, but seem to have been abundant near large lakes and rivers and most common in nearshore marine environments.

Original Source:

Averianov A (2014) Review of taxonomy, geographic distribution, and paleoenvironments of Azhdarchidae (Pterosauria) ZooKeys 432: 1-107. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.432.7913

 

The hard corals primarily responsible for the construction of coral reefs around the world have attracted the attention of taxonomists for hundreds of years. Despite the important role such corals play in building what are arguably the world’s most diverse ecosystems, coral reefs in some parts of the world still hold surprises for modern scientists.

An international team of scientists has recently described a new hard coral species, Pachyseris inattesa, from the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. The study, led by the University of Milano-Biccocain collaboration with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), highlights the opportunities for scientific discovery in a region that has historically been difficult to access.

Corals in the genus Pachyseris are reef dwellers often referred to as “elephant skin corals” or “corduroy corals” due to their wrinkled appearance. Tullia I Terraneo, the lead author of the paper, explains that the name for the new species was chosen because of the reaction she and Francesca Benzoni, the co-author who collected the species, had when examining a specimen closely. “We were looking at the SEM [scanning electron microscope] images, and realized that we had something completely unexpected.” The word ‘inattesa’ translates from Italian as ‘unforeseen’.

The coral indeed has a superficial resemblance with some common and widespread coral species of the genus Leptoseris and this led others in the past to misidentify it. “After detailed micromorphological and molecular analyses, we can confirm that this is a unique and novel lineage,” Terraneo says. The new species was recorded from different reef habitats along the coast of Saudi Arabia, between 10m-35m depth and to date its distribution seems to be limited to the Red Sea region.

The finding is the latest outcome from the “Biodiversity in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea” project organized by Michael Berumen, co-author of the study and PI of the Reef Ecology Lab at KAUST. This project was initiated in 2012 and has brought numerous scientists and taxonomic experts to the Red Sea from around world, with the overall aim to increase our understanding of the biological diversity present in Saudi Arabian coral reefs. Although the Red Sea played a pivotal role in the early history of scientific works on coral reefs, the region has been understudied in more recent times.

The discovery of Pachyseris inattesa highlights that our knowledge regarding the Red Sea is still far from complete, and that our understanding of hard coral diversity globally is likewise not perfect.

“As far as we can tell, this species is endemic to the Red Sea,” Terraneo said. “Although our current sampling has only identified it in Saudi Arabia, I suspect that further research in other Red Sea countries would reveal a broader range.”

In any case, continued discovery of new species in the Red Sea has been steadily increasing the known endemism of the region. “Findings such as those presented in this paper continue to highlight how special the Red Sea is and provide even more reasons to make sure that conservation efforts in the region preserve these natural treasures, including those that we have yet to discover,” said Berumen.

Original source:

Terraneo TI, Berumen ML, Arrigoni R, Waheed Z, Bouwmeester J, Caragnano A, Stefani F, Benzoni F (2014) Pachyseris inattesa sp. n. (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Scleractinia): a new reef coral species from the Red Sea and its phylogenetic relationships. ZooKeys 433: 1-30. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.433.8036

 

Contact:

Dr. Tullia I Terraneo
Reef Ecology Lab
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Email: tulliaisotta.terraneo@kaust.edu.sa

Scales are small insects that feed by sucking plant juices. They can attack nearly any plant and cause serious damage to many agricultural and ornamental plants. While native scales have natural enemies that generally keep their populations in check, invasive species often do not, and for this reason many commercially important scale pests in the United States are species that were accidentally introduced.

In order to facilitate the identification of alien species at U.S. ports-of-entry, scientists of the United States Department of Agriculture and California Department of Food and Agriculture joined efforts and built an online tool for the identification of 194 potentially invasive species from all over the world.

The new website is a comprehensive resource to assist federal and state identifiers to make authoritative identifications of intercepted scale insects. This resource includes, for each species, information on diagnostic characters, distribution, hosts, and important references with line drawings, photos of slide-mounted specimens and of specimens in the field. It also has identification keys, which were built in Lucid, a powerful expert system specifically designed for making identifications of organisms. Information on each species is maintained through links to ScaleNet, a rich relational database on scales that is updated regularly. Details about this tool have been published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

A number of other online tools, including Mobile apps, have been developed by various groups of scientists in cooperation with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Identification Technology Program (ITP), to help identify invasive species. These tools are available at no cost via the ID Tools website.

‘Protecting the borders of large countries such as the United States from invasive scales often requires a very broad knowledge of the taxonomy a group, and detailed knowledge of the literature and collections from the last 250+ years ‘, said Dr. Douglass Miller, the senior author of the paper and a retired scale insect systematist. ‘Currently only a few specialists in the world can identify scale insects based on morphology, and of these, many are retired or approaching retirement. We hope that our tool will facilitate scale insect pest identifications at the borders and will inspire taxonomists to build similar tools for their groups.’

Original source:

Miller DR, Rung A, Parikh G (2014) Scale Insects, edition 2, a tool for the identification of potential pest scales at U.S.A. ports-of-entry (Hemiptera, Sternorrhyncha, Coccoidea). ZooKeys 431: 61-78. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.431.7474

 

Additional Information:

Scale Insects, Edition 2 was made possible, in part, by a cooperative agreement from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) Identification Technology Program (ITP). An agreement through the USDA Center for Plant Health Science and Technology (CPHST) and another infusion of funds from the USDA Invasive Species Liaison and Coordinator funded an earlier version of this tool.