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Scientists discover and describe a new species of spider from Mexico. The new species belongs to the enigmatic family Paratropididae that is distinguished by representatives who possess unique camouflaging abilities. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Like all species form the family the new species Paratropis tuxtlensis has its entire body encrusted with soil particles. The encrusted soil on the exoskeleton could provide protection from predators or serve as camouflage to deceive their prey. The encrusted soil particles are because this species has glandular pores in the cuticle and their secretion help to stick the soil particles. These spiders are very cryptic, which coupled with lack of movement when exposed makes them quite difficult to find and collect.

The specific name of the new species Paratropis tuxtlensis refers to the type locality: Estación de Biología Tropical “Los Tuxtlas”, Veracruz, Mexico. The species is known only from the region around the type locality in the Volcán San Martin Biosphere Reserve.

These species typically don’t make burrows but rely on their camouflage to hide under rocks and in the soil. “The specimens were collected in tropical rain-forest, under boulders on the ground. They remained motionless when they were exposed by removing the rock that provided shelter, possibly as a defense mechanism because the soil particles encrusted on the body cuticle serves as camouflage with the moist ground.” explains the authors of the study, Dr. Alejandro Valdez-Mondragón, M. Sc. Jorge I. Mendoza and Dr. Oscar F. Francke from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City.

Original Source:

Valdez-Mondragón A, Mendoza JI, Francke OF (2014) First record of the mygalomorph spider family Paratropididae (Arachnida, Araneae) in North America with the description of a new species of Paratropis Simon from Mexico, and with new ultramorphological data for the family. ZooKeys 416: 1. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.416.7253

The species diversity in soil fauna has been studied in temperate regions for more than 50 years, but with scarcely any mention of thrips. This lack of reference to thrips raises the question whether or not litter-dwelling thrips are distributed only in tropical and sub-tropical regions.

To answer this question a total 150 leaf litter samples were collected from 6 natural reserves located in three climatic regions, temperate, subtropical and tropical, along a 4100 km latitudinal gradient in East China. The survey was done over a four-year period by Dr. Jun Wang, who is a thrips specialist and an assistant professor at the College of Plant Science, Jilin University, China. His results have been published in the open access journal ZooKeys

‘Thrips constitute over 3.0% of total litter–dwelling macroinvertebrate individuals in 4 natural reserves from subtropical and tropical zone.’, said Dr Wang. ‘In contrast, it constitute only 0.3% in the warm temperate natural reserves, and no thrips is collected in a mid temperate reserve. ‘

Dr. Wang said that the order on the average species numbers per plot of litter thrips was tropic followed by subtropics followed by temperate. Mean density of litter thrips per plots in the tropics and subtropics was significantly higher than that in the temperate region.

Dr. Laurence Mound, CSIRO Entomology, Australia commented that this manuscript is the the first serious attempt to look at the diversity of thrips in leaf-litter, based on a good sampling strategy, and investigating the variation with latitude.

Original source:

Wang J, Tong X, Wu D (2014) The effect of latitudinal gradient on the species diversity of Chinese litter-dwelling thrips. ZooKeys 417: 9. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.417.7895

The Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica has joined forces with Pensoft Publishers to bring the Society’s journal Nota Lepidopterologica on the way to open access and innovation. The first issue of the journal published in Pensoft Publishers advanced open access format is now a fact.

The scope of Nota has not changed and it continues to publish contributions to the study of mainly but not exclusively Palaearctic Lepidoptera, including taxonomy, morphology and anatomy, phylogenetics, biogeography, ecology, behaviour, conservation, as well as other aspects of lepidopterology.

The new semantically enriched online format of the journal does, however, bring a great number of benefits and new features. One of the many improvements is that the waiting time from acceptance of a paper to publication will now be much shorter. Each paper will be published online within weeks of acceptance on the new Nota website

Nota Lepidopterologica is now an open access journal, which means that all published papers will be accessible to anyone in the world with an internet connection as soon as the paper is published. Pensoft’s modern publishing tools include semantic markup of all manuscripts, registration of new taxa and nomenclatural acts in ZooBank, and linking of scientific names in papers to various biodiversity resources (e.g., GBIF, Encyclopedia of Life, etc.).

“Pensoft is well known as one of World’s most innovative publishers focusing on all topics related to biodiversity. For years they have been revolutionizing publishing by integrating modern tools with traditional topics into high-quality products. We hope you will enjoy the new editorial system and outlook of Nota Lepidopterologica and we welcome you to the first issue of Nota published by Pensoft.”comments the Editor-in-Chief of Nota Lepidopterologica Dr Jadranka Rota from the University of Turku, Finland.

In the new semantically enriched issue you can read about an unexpected discovery of Pyrgus malvoides in the Czech Republic, the revision of Naarda (Erebidae), a detailed examination of the Alpine populations of the butterfly Erebia euryale, an interesting new species of larentiine geometrids from the Kopet-Dagh Mountains, reduced mouth parts in coleophorids, the taxonomic status of two species of Ochromolopis (Epermeniidae), the description of the previously unknown female of Ethmia cribravia (Elachistidae), a remarkable new species of gelechiids from Turkmenistan, difficulties of identifying species of Melitaea based on their wing morphology, and about choreutids of Madeira.

Rota J (2014) Nota Lepidopterologica combines tradition and innovation through open access and advanced publishing model. Nota Lepidopterologica 37(1): 1-2. doi: 10.3897/nl.37.8008

 

Additional Information:

Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica is the European society for the study of moths and butterflies and for the conservation of these insects and their natural habitats. The society was founded in 1976 with the aims of promoting collaboration among the lepidopterists of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, and of promoting conservation of Lepidoptera and their habitats. The society now has in excess of 600 members.

Pensoft Publishers specialize in academic and professional book and journal publishing, mostly in the field of biodiversity science and natural history. In 2008, Pensoft launched its first open-access journals named ZooKeys and BioRisk, and since then it has taken a leadership in introducing innovations in the field of open access. On 16th of September 2013, Pensoft launched the Biodiversity Data Journal and the associated Pensoft Writing Tool, as the first workflow ever to put together article authoring, community peer-review, publishing and dissemination within a single online collaborative platform.

 

Contact:

Jadranka Rota
Editor-in-chief
Laboratory of Genetics/Zoological Museum,
University of Turku,
Finland
Email: jadranka.rota@utu.fi

China, from 2015 the world’s biggest economy, is its worst polluter already now. It has not yet, but will be most probably climbing the top position also with regards the aggregate contribution to climate change (historical emission residues included), called the climate debt. At the same time, it is the largest victim of environmental change, and the leading country in cleaning-up the environmental mess – the government has taken bold steps towards improvement. Could the largest polluter become the world’s last best hope for establishing a global ecological civilisation?

Dr. Joachim H. Spangenberg from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) seeks the answer to this question, analysing the ranking of China and other main agents regarding fossil fuel production, trade and consumption, climate and environmental policies, and the resulting climate debt of countries. In a recent paper published in the open access journal BioRisk he finally suggests 3 fields for action which would permit China to start reducing not only its climate footprint bit even the accumulated climate debt within the next decade.

The anthropocene is the age where human influences are determining the development of the planet’s ecosystems and thus the bio-physical basis of future human civilisations. As the world’s largest economy China is the world’s largest consumer of all kinds of resources and is also the worst polluter, with per capita greenhouse gas emissions surpassing those of EU citizens.

However, the country is not only a culprit in this bleak situation. China is also the world’s largest victim of environmental change, including air and soil pollution, water and land scarcity, biodiversity loss and climate change.

“Not only slowing down the increase but reducing emissions should be a top priority for China, and it is: the government has taken some bold steps.” comments Dr. Spangenberg.

China is currently the world’s largest investor in renewable energies, has the largest afforestation program, and leads the world in energy efficiency improvements. As the largest polluter it has extraordinary opportunities to improve the global state of the environment and is perhaps the world’s best hope for establishing a global ecological civilisation.

However, despite the magnitude of efforts they are not yet sufficient. “We suggest three additional steps which could help China to begin reducing its climate debt within a couple of decades, define a long term perspective for policy planning and adjust its growth model to the challenges of the anthropocene.” explains Dr. Spangenberg.

The author suggests a revised Methane strategy as a short term measure towards reducing China’s climate debt. Another measure outlined is capping the consumption of fossil fuels to limit greenhouse gas emission. And last but not the least the study suggests a new growth model for the Chinese economy where de-growth will happen by design in a socially and environmentally benign way, rather than by environmentally triggered disaster.

“Any country aspiring a leadership role in 21st century should be aware that the majority of humankind will be negatively affected by climate change. A country that is causing havoc on their lands and people will lose the legitimacy of any claim for leadership, regardless of its economic or military strength. Thus for social, economic, environmental and geopolitical reasons, a rapid transition towards a sustainable economy, making use of all available means, is an urgent necessity, for Europe, the USA and not least for China.” summarizes Dr. Spangenberg about the urgency of effective measures.

Original Source:

Spangenberg JH (2014) China in the anthropocene: Culprit, victim or last best hope for a global ecological civilisation? BioRisk 9: 10.3897/biorisk.9.6105

The new Advanced Books platform of Pensoft opens new horizons for semantic book publishing

Easy access to legacy data collected over hundreds-of-years of exploration of nature from the convenience of people’s own computers for anyone all over the world? It may sound futuristic but a brand new pilot showcases how this is possible here and now.

The new workflow demonstrates a re-publication of a volume of Flora Malesiana in a semantically enriched HTML edition available on the newly launched, Advanced Books publishing platform. The platform was demonstrated today at the EU funded pro-iBiosphere project which supported, in part, the re-publication of Flora Malesiana.

When Linnaeus was laying the foundations of taxonomy as a science in his Species Plantarum and Systema Naturae books he probably did not imagine that his methods of publication of natural history data would remain almost unchanged for more than 270 years! The bulk of the information on the living World is still closed in paper-based legacy literature, especially in fundamental regional treatises such as Flora, Fauna and Mycota series, hardly accessible for readers, despite the dramatic changes in the publishing technologies that have taken place over the last decade.

The new pilot, developed by Pensoft Publishers in a cooperation with the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Plazi, and Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), demonstrates how a fundamental book in natural history can start a new life with Advanced Books. Re-publication of the Flora of Northumberland & Durham, published in 1838, will be the next to appear as a result of a collaboration between the Botanical Garden Meise National Botanic Garden of Belgium and Pensoft.

Flora Malesiana is a systematic account of the flora of Malesia, the plant-geographical unit spanning six countries in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. The plant treatments are not published in a systematic order but as they come about by the scientific efforts of some 100 collaborators all over the world.

With the new platform, such scientifically important historical monographs, enriched with additional information from up-to-date external sources related to organisms’ names, species treatments, information on their ecology, distribution and conservation value, morphological characters, etc., become freely usable for anyone at any place in the world.

The re-publication in advanced open access comes with the many other benefits 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.

“Advanced Books will bring many outstanding scientific monographs to a new life, however the platform is not only restricted to e-publish our legacy literature.” commented Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Managing Director of Pensoft. “New books are mostly welcome on the platform, joining their historical predecessors in an open, common, human- and machine-readable, data space for the benefit of future researchers and the society in general.” concluded Prof. Penev.

Original Source:

de Wilde W (2014) Flora Malesiana. Series I – Seed Plants, Volume 14. Myristicaceae. Advanced Books: e1141. doi: 10.3897/ab.e1141

An international team of researchers comprised of Thomas Wesener, Museum Koenig, Bonn, Daniel Le, Field Museum, Chicago and Stephanie Loria, American Museum of Natural History, New York, discovered seven new species of chirping giant pill-millipedes on Madagascar. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The species discovered all belong to the genus Sphaeromimus, which is Latin for ‘small ball animal’. However, the designation ‘small’ is not always true for the members of the genus as one of the newly discovered species surprises with a size larger than a ping-pong ball. Another special characteristic of the genus is that its species have the largest chirping organs of any millipede, which are most probably used during mating.

Despite sometimes sharing a habitat with Madagascar’s ‘large’ pill-millipedes, which can reach the size of a baseball, the new species are more closely related to millipedes found in India than their Malagasy neighbours. This relationship dates back more than 80 million years to at least as early as the Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs walked the Earth and India and Madagascar were connected.

One of the new species Sphaeromimus andrahomana offers clues to Madagascar’s ecosystems thousands of years ago. Although the species was found in a cave in Madagascar’s southern dry spiny forest region, genetically, it is a rainforest taxon. The lemur skeletons found inside the same cave are also evidence that a rainforest existed in the now desert-like area until 3000-5000 years ago. The species, sheltered by the humid cave, is probably a living witness to this ancient rainforest.

The discovery is particularly exciting as some of species are microendemics, meaning they are only found in one tiny forest fragment, a few hundred meters long and wide.

S. lavasoa, for example, is restricted to the Lavasoa Mountain, which is covered by an isolated, slightly larger than 100 hectare, rainforest remnant, which is famous for the recent discovery of a large scorpion as well as a dwarf lemur species. This discovery further highlights the importance of the area as a Center of Endemism.

Another new species (S. saintelucei) is probably the most endangered millipede on Madagascar. It was found in a fragment of the Sainte Luce littoral rainforest characterized by its laterite soil that is now so small that no lemur or other large vertebrate species can survive in it.

The nearby Sainte Luce forest fragment with sandy ground harbours a different species (S. splendidus) also believed to be a microendemic. “Despite their close proximity, both species are not even closely related. Both the fragments where they were found are currently threatened by a huge, billion-dollar titanium ore strip mining project. Although there are intentions to designate and manage conservation zones, the plan is to protect only one large fragment may result in the extinction of some of the species if additional conservation measures aren’t undertaken.” explains the lead author Dr. Thomas Wesener from the Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn, Germany.

Original source:

Wesener T, Le DM-T, Loria SF (2014) Integrative revision of the giant pill-millipede genus Sphaeromimus from Madagascar, with the description of seven new species (Diplopoda, Sphaerotheriida, Arthrosphaeridae). ZooKeys 414: 67. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.414.7730

 

Contact:

Dr. Thomas Wesener, Research Museum A. Koenig, Bonn, Germany, t.wesener@zfmk.de, 0049 (0)228 9122 425

Stephanie Loria, American Museum of Natural History, New York, stephaniefrancesloria@gmail.com

Daniel Minh-Tu Le, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, dle@fieldmuseum.org

Researchers from the Missouri Botanical Garden have discovered in dry forests and transient sand dunes in Bolivia and Paraguay, a new plant species in the moonseed family Menispermaceae. The discovery was reported in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

The new species was described in the genus Cissampelos, which includes vining species that for the most part are found in disturbed habitats of the tropical and subtropical regions of the World.

This new Cissampelos is morphologically unique by its small leaves, its 8 anther-cells in the male flowers, and a large endocarp–a bony tissue surrounding the curved seed–obscurely ornamented.

The new species bears the name arenicola alluding to its preference for sand dune and dry forest habitats. Interestingly, the new species is superficially similar in habit to C. capensis a southern African taxon that also found in dry habitats.

As typical of most members of the Menispermaceae family, plants in the genus Cissampelos are also dioecious, with their male and female, mostly inconspicuous flowers found in different individuals.

The study by Dr. Rosa Ortiz and Dr. Michael Nee notes that the dioecious condition and increasing land transformation of its transient habitat may make this newly described species potentially vulnerable to extinction.

Original source:

Ortiz RdC, MH Nee (2014) A new species of Cissampelos (Menispermaceae) from Bolivia and Paraguay. PhytoKeys 38: 8. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.38.6504

One of the World’s oldest entomological journals Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift goes advanced open access with Pensoft

One of the oldest entomological journals Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift enters in a new collaboration with Pensoft Publishers to step right into the future with an innovative publishing platform. The first issue for 2014 is now available in a novel open access, semantically enriched format to show how tradition and innovation can work together.

Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift was founded in 1857 as Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift by the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The journal is recognized as one of the oldest in entomology worldwide, and the oldest one in Germany. It publishes original research papers in English on the systematics, taxonomy, phylogeny, evolution, comparative morphology, and biogeography of insects.

As a member of Pensoft’s family of advanced open access journals, Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift now benefits from the innovative semantically enriched open access model, while at the same time keeping the traditional PDF and high quality print versions.

The new open access format means not just that the articles and all associated materials are free to download but even more so that novel approaches are used in the dissemination and reuse of published content.

This is not only of use for the authors who can freely share and promote their articles and hence benefit from increased citation rates and new collaboration opportunities, but for the whole scientific community as the articles become available practically to everyone, independent of an access via a library or a university server. More and more taxonomic works are being published by experts from developing and transitional countries and open access is the only way to provide them with an open and efficient mechanism for exchange and growth of knowledge.

Pensoft also ensures the visibility and longevity of published taxonomic information by distributing it to global portals, such as Encyclopedia of Life, Plazi Treatment Repository, the wiki treatment repository Species-ID, and many others. New taxon names published in the journal are also automatically registered in ZooBank through an innovative workflow pioneered by Pensoft.

“With the beginning of this year the Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, one of the world’s oldest entomology journals, became a front-line fighter of modern scientific publishing. When I was invited to take the editorship for this journal, it was the perspective to lead it onto the modern publishing paths of Pensoft that excited me most. The transfer to the new publisher brings changes about which are all, as I see it, for the benefit of the scientific community.” comments Dominique Zimmerman from the Natural History Museum Vienna, Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

“Innovation is central to how Pensoft sees its role as a publisher. We strongly believe that the attractive combination between historical legacy and tradition and the advanced publishing technologies of Pensoft will take Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift into the future!” said the Managing Director of Pensoft Publishers, Prof. Lyubomir Penev.

Original Source:

Zimmermann D (2014) Jump into the future: Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift goes for advanced open access in its 157 th publishing year. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 61(1): 1-1. doi: 10.3897/dez.61.7967

 

Additional Information:

Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity is a research museum within the Leibniz Association. It is one of the most significant research institutions worldwide in biological and geo-scientific research on evolution and biodiversity. Established in 1810, its collections comprise more than 30 million items relating to zoology, palaeontology, geology and mineralogy, which are highly significant for science as well as for the history of science and at the centre of the research performed at the Museum.

Pensoft Publishers specialize in academic and professional book and journal publishing, mostly in the field of biodiversity science and natural history. In 2008, Pensoft launched its first open-access journals named ZooKeys and BioRisk, and since then it has taken a leadership in introducing innovations in the field of open access. On 16th of September 2013, Pensoft launched the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ) and the associated Pensoft Writing Tool (PWT), as the first workflow ever to put together article authoring, community peer-review, publishing and dissemination within a single online collaborative platform.

 

Baltic amber deposits reveal a new species of flat bug from the genus Aradus

A piece of Eocene Baltic Amber of about 45 million years age contains a well preserved extinct flat bug, which turned out to be a new species to science. This exciting discovery is one of the many secrets that deposits of Baltic amber have revealed in the last years and are yet to come in the future. The study describing the new species was published in the open access journal Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift.

The new species Aradus macrosomus is a rather large representative of the genus, differing by its size and particular structures from its congeners. The name of the new species is chosen to reflect its unusual size and derives from the Greek words “macros” – large and “soma” – body.

Baltic Amber, a fossilized tree resin found on or near the shores of the eastern Baltic Sea, represents the largest deposit of amber in the world. It is exceptionally rich in well-preserved inclusions of botanical and zoological objects, particularly arthropods.

To date 14 species of the genus Aradus have been described from Baltic amber inclusions. Extant species of flat bugs commonly live on and under the bark of dead trees, which could be an explanation why so many species are well preserved in amber deposits.

Original Source:

Heiss E (2014) Revision of the flat bug family Aradidae from Baltic Amber IX. Aradus macrosomus sp. n. (Hemiptera: Heteroptera). Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 61(1): 27-29. doi: 10.3897/dez.61.7155

Many representatives of the fauna possess unique masking abilities but stick insects are among the masters of disguise within the animal world. During a field trip in Guangxi, China Mr. Ho Wai-chun George from the Hong Kong Entomological Society discovers a new species from this enigmatic insect group, which he describes in a recent research paper published in the open access journal Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift.

Like the name suggests the new stick insect Sinophasma damingshanensis is distinguished by peculiarly elongated body and green-brownish coloration, which bear an astonishing resemblance to a plant stem. This natural camouflage can make stick insects extremely difficult to spot, and to make it even harder for the observer many also show rocking behavior, where they move from side to side to resemble plant movements in the wind.

The new species was discovered hiding in the thick evergreen forests of Damingshan, located at the south-central Guangxi, China during a collecting trip. To make the work of scientists harder this insects had to be collected at night when it is active. Luckily with the help of a torch used to spot them on the leaves of plants a number of specimens were collected, which later turned out to belong to a new species.

Guangxi is one of the Chinese provinces having high diversity of stick- and leaf insects. Sometimes new species can still be discovered from the undisturbed primitive forests in the province and the newly described Sinophasma damingshanensis is the one of the new taxa from this fascinating group of insects found in China.

“In order to find this new species, I had to use torch to spot it on leaves of trees at night because almost all stick- and leaf insects are nocturnal insects. If you know the insects’ food plant, you can find the corresponding species. Sinophasma damingshanensis favours to eat the leaves of Fagaceae and this is the tactic we used to find it in the wild. Hence, if you are a Phasmatologist you may have to not only study the taxonomy of the stick- and leaf insects, but also the taxonomy of the plants.” comments the author of the study Mr. Ho Wai-chun George.

Original Source:

Wai Chun George H (2014) A new species of Sinophasma Günther, 1940 from Guangxi, China (Phasmida: Diapheromeridae: Necrosciinae). Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 61(1): 23-25. doi: 10.3897/dez.61.7129