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A collaborative biological survey that focused on the insects of French Polynesia has resulted in the discovery of over 100 tiny predatory beetle species in Tahiti, 28 of these species newly described in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The predatory beetles range in size from 3-8 mm long, and have evolutionarily lost their flight wings, making them homebodies living in small patches of mountain forest. The author, James Liebherr of Cornell University, states: “It is exhilarating working with such a fauna, because every new locality or ecological situation has the high probability of supporting a species nobody has seen before.”

This adaptive radiation has evolved on an oceanic island less than 1.5 million years old, within an area of just over 1000 square kilometers. These beetles have diversified by speciating as fast as any animals worldwide, with each species estimated to last only 300,000 years before splitting into daughter species.

Tahiti’s geological history has much to do with this evolutionary rate, as these beetles prefer to live in rain forests on high mountains that have become isolated through extensive erosion that has produced the broad, low-elevation river valleys so characteristic of the island. Yet some closely related species live on the same mountain ridge, just at different elevations or in different types of habitat.

This level of specialization is what characterizes an adaptive radiation, where species exist within narrow ecological or geographic boundaries that mainland species would simply ignore or fly over. Yet this exuberant evolution may face a dark future, as invasive species from the mainland threaten the highly specialized island species. Predatory ants, such as the little fire ant, have invaded Tahiti, and have been recorded from some localities where native beetle species were collected by French entomologists in the 1970’s.

“Now that the 101 species of small predatory beetles currently known from Tahiti can be identified, field sampling can be used to evaluate their conservation status relative to alien threats.”, says Liebherr. Moreover he says: “Everybody who makes landfall on Tahiti, either by air or sea, should endeavor to disembark pest free so as to protect the many denizens of the mountain forests who make the native ecosystems work.”

Original Source:

The Mecyclothorax beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Moriomorphini) of Tahiti, Society Islands. ZooKeys 322: 1-170. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.322.5492

The 8th issue of the open access Biorisk journal is devoted to the topic of development and standardization of monitoring of genetically modified plants (GMP). The new issue, compiled by professionals under the umbrella of the Association of German Engineers (VDI), provides up-to-date research on the issue of developing VDI guidelines for GMP monitoring; now also capturing new faunal species groups as indicators.

Each application for approval of GM plants must contain a tailored monitoring plan. However, in Germany current experience with the cultivation of insect-resistant maize (MON810) and starch-modified potatoes (Amflora) shows that – from a conservation point of view – past monitoring plans are not suitable to detect relevant environmental effects.

Professional experts have now suggested a wide range of guidelines for GMP monitoring, among others collecting faunal species data for GMP impact monitoring, also broadly applicable for general biodiversity assessments in agricultural landscapes. The current issue contains articles from professionals in the field suggesting the introduction and implementation of VDI guidelines of faunal species, like butterflies, amphibians, soil organisms and wild bees.

The creation and adoption of VDI guidelines follows a strict procedure and the professionals involved in their production are strictly volunteers. In the European guidelines for GMP monitoring the use of such standardized methods is strongly recommended in order to ensure high quality, durability, reproducibility and comparability of data across Europe. Addressee for the VDI guidelines are all actors and institutions involved in the assessment of environmental effects of genetically modified plants. The guidelines are bilingual in German and English.

The creation of the VDI guidelines was funded by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the Federal Ministry for the Environment as part of a research and development project.

 

Butterflies and moths were the first biological indicators considered for the purpose of GMO monitoring within the VDI guidelines series. The European community stipulates a monitoring plan in order to trace and identify any harmful effects on human health or the environment of GMO after they have been placed on the market. Butterflies and moths are widely accepted as relevant protection goals and have often been suggested and applied as suitable indicators for the monitoring of environmental quality and changes as one of the major indicators to monitor and assess biodiversity change in Europe.

Adverse effects of genetically modified (GM) plants on Lepidoptera have already been reported, which strongly supports their quality and significance for an appropriate GMO monitoring. The VDI guidelines provide the state-of-the-art of a GMO monitoring of Lepidoptera as required by the European Community. They describe the best possible treatment of the demands of a Lepidopteran GMO monitoring.

The paper recently published in the open access journal BioRisk, reports known and potential effects of GM plants on Lepidoptera. The study aims at an increase in the detection success of such effects, thus meeting the required criteria for a GMO monitoring formulated by the EC. Information is provided on the sampling and monitoring of day-active Lepidoptera, of night-active moths and of the recording of Lepidopteran larvae, as well as to sample design and strategy. Though specifically designed for GM crops, the VDI guidelines may also serve as a template to monitor the effects of a wider range of adverse factors on Lepidoptera in agriculture

The guidelines describe and ensure a suitable approach for a powerful and cost-efficient monitoring, which is not equivalent to being cheap, but means generating data of high (or sufficient) quality with an acceptable and justified effort. An iterative quality control of the monitoring results is paramount, regularly checking the relation between invested efforts and value of generated data, and continuously adapting the monitoring programme to scientific progress and new knowledge.

Original Source:

Lang A, Theißen B, Dolek M (2013) Standardised methods for the GMO monitoring of butterflies and moths: the whys and hows. BioRisk 8: 15–38. doi: 10.3897/biorisk.8.32

For biologists it is an easy matter: spiders have eight legs and insects have six. This fact is important when beholding and recognizing the tiny new species of Spider Water Beetles from the Philippine Island of Mindoro discovered by researchers of the Ateneo de Manila University. Zookeys, an open access international scientific journal launched to accelerate biodiversity research, has published the paper about the curious creatures in its latest issue [Zookeys 321: 35–64 (2013)].

Primarily, the study was intended to find and describe the larvae of known species of the genus Ancyronyx, under which all Spider Water Beetles of the world are compiled. But when the researchers checked the pristine creeks and rivers of the ethnic Buhid’s ancestral lands in the Municipality of Roxas, Oriental Mindoro, they found the first new species, now named as Ancyronyx buhid.

The second new species was detected among older collections of undetermined museum specimens. It was confirmed to occur in the waters of the famous Tamaraw Falls, a popular tourist destination in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro. It was named Ancyronyx tamaraw after it’s “type locality”*.

The newly discovered Buhid Spider Water Beetle has high potential to be used as a bioindicator species for healthy ecosystem conditions, since it fulfills the necessary criteria: (1) it is surprisingly common in clean, pristine running waters all over Mindoro, but (2) it is absent in more or less polluted and altered streams and (3) it can easily be identified in larval and adult stages, by eye-catching color patterns.

The assignment of the immature larvae with the adult beetles was done by DNA tests since the genetic constitution is very similar in individuals of the same species irrespective of the developmental stage, but more varying between different species. The genetic data were deposited at gene bank, and the occurrence data of the Ancyronyx species of Mindoro were submitted to GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Both are curated free access databases.

20 species of Spider Water Beetles are known on earth by now. 11 of them are endemic to the Philippines and cannot be found anywhere else, indicating that the country is the diversity centre of this genus. It emphasizes the importance of the country as a biodiversity hotspot at global scale. More efforts are required to protect the ecosystems and their unique diversity of life forms.

* zoological “type specimens” are important vouchers of a taxon (e.g. a new species). They are deposited in scientific collections for safe custody as required by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. The original place of collection of the primary type specimen is the “type locality”.

 

Original source:

Authors (2013) Ancyronyx Erichson, 1847 (Coleoptera, Elmidae) from Mindoro, Philippines, with description of the larvae and two new species using DNA sequences for the assignment of the developmental stages. ZooKeys 321: 35–64. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.321.5395

 

Additional Information:

The study was partly funded by the Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as part of the PHERnet program and by the Ateneo de Manila University. A fund for free access publication was provided by Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) Open Access Support Project (EOASP). Ateneo researchers are also very thankful to the people and administration of San Vicente, Roxas, who most supported the study as well as for the international cooperation with other institutions, especially the Natural History Museum of Vienna, Austria and the Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden, Germany from where additional specimens were made accessible for this study.

In terms of biodiversity richness, Iran is considered as an extremely complex area with wide ranges in the extremes of altitude, climate and temperature. The high biodiversity of the Iranian fauna is also the result of its location and the influences of four ecozones from North, South and South East. The rather high number of recorded endemic species of Fulgoromorpha in Iran indicates a high potential for speciation in some areas.

More than 200 species of Fulgoromorpha have been recorded from Iran since 1902. Representatives from 13 families among those have never been recorded from other parts of the world and appear to be restricted to the borders of Iran. The high endemism (nearly 50%) in the recorded fauna of Iran shows a high potential of speciation inside Iran. The study, published in the open access journal Zookeys, reveals distribution patterns and endemic areas for the endemic species of Fulgoromorpha in Iran.

The records of the endemic planthoppers of Iran have been accumulated during the recent 110 years. The nature of Iran, like any other land, has been exposed to various changes during this long period by events, such as agriculture, war, fire in woods and forests, overgrazing, urbanization etc. Therefore the presence of endemic species with a limited distribution and the possible extinction of some of them should be subjected to further investigations.

Original Source:

Fariba Mozaffarian (2013) A preliminary study on the distribution patterns of endemic species of Fulgoromorpha (Hemiptera, Auchenorrhyncha) in Iran. ZooKeys 319: 321, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.319.4159

 

A new study provides detailed information on karyotype and reproductive system of the species, the distribution, including rare video of their dexterous and vicious hunting practices

The giant water bug Lethocerus patruelis is the largest European true bug and the largest European water insect. The adult bugs reach an impressive 8 cm in length, and the largest representatives of the same family are even bigger – up to almost 12 cm. A new article published in the open access journal Zookeys provides detailed information on karyotype and the chromosome behavior, the male reproductive system of the species, as well as interesting insights into the life habits and the distribution of the species on the Balkans.

Lethocerus patruelis is a member of the family Belostomatidae also known as electric light bugs or toe biters. These bugs are fierce predators which stalk, capture and feed on aquatic crustaceans, fish and amphibians. When they strike, they inject strong digestive saliva, sucking out the liquefied remains to feed. This powerful hunting tool gave the family its common name, referring to the extremely painful bite from the Belostomatidae members. Their bite is considered one of the most painful that can be ever inflicted by any insect but it is of no medical significance.

During their study of the giant water bug N. Simov and M. Langourov from the study team had the unique chance to witness and record on video the vicious predatory practices of the species. In the recorded material, a larva uses the stems of a water plant to stalk and ambush its unsuspicious pray. The giant water bug larva can be seen storming from its cover and catching and injecting saliva into a small fish.

During the last ten years, many new findings of L. patruelis were made by the team in Southern Bulgaria, providing evidence that the giant water bug is expanding its territory northwards. Such a wide and abundant distribution of the species in these regions would be a further sign of the recent changes of European bug fauna caused by climate change and an important clue for the effects of global warming.

Original Source:

Grozeva S, Kuznetsova VG, Simov N, Langourov M, Dalakchieva S (2013) Sex chromosome pre-reduction in male meiosis of Lethocerus patruelis (Stål, 1854) (Heteroptera, Belostomatidae) with some notes on the distribution of the species. In: Popov A, Grozeva S, Simov N, Tasheva E (Eds) Advances in Hemipterology. ZooKeys 319: 119, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.319.4384

Modern digital macro photographic equipment allows everybody to shoot marvellous pictures of very small-sized living organisms, including insects. Easy access to the internet facilitates allows the daily upload of thousands of high quality insect pictures to photo sharing websites. This new phenomenon can be considered a democratic revolution in the study of biodiversity. Insect macro-photographs may be useful to illustrate online visual guides and identification keys , such as the BugGuide and Canadian Journal of Arthropod identification, or complement specialized biodiversity web resources, such as the Encyclopaedia of Life.

Photographs labelled with at least date and shooting site are scientifically more valuable, and may therefore contribute to insect biology and taxonomy, biodiversity catalogues, or species conservation. Images uploaded in the Spanish internet photosharing website “Biodiversidad Virtual” , for example, provided the first Iberian record of an American native assassin bug species (Zelus renardii). Similarly, confirmation of an endangered Iberian endemic plant-bug (Parahypsitylus nevadensis) came through such images fifty years after its description. Photo sharing websites also were the source of specimens for the description of a plant-lice species new to science (Schizaphis piricola).

Well-structured photosharing websites allow users to exploit the benefits of the photographs’ linked metadata. In “Biodiversidad Virtual“, authors must provide at least date and shooting site. Meta data and species name, as verified by specialists, contribute to the website database, from which information may be retrieved through a user-friendly interface.

In the Iberian Peninsula, for example, the conservation of the endangered assassin bug (Vibertiola cinerea) benefits from the photographic documentation of new localities, which have enlarged the species’ protected range 150 km to the south. Through photo sharing the periods of activity and overwintering stages of a frequently portrayed shieldbug (Nezara viridula) can now be alternatively obtained by summarizing shooting dates from about half a thousand uploaded pictures.

One disadvantage of photosharing databases is that they are normally restricted to big-sized, frequent and colourful species, and limited by uneven photosampling along space and time. Species identification is also not always possible from the image alone. Nevertheless, photosharing websites provide inexpensive, friendly, efficient, and powerful tools to Public Participation in Scientific Research. At the same time scientists can benefit from the help of thousands of volunteer macro-photographers who generously share their high-quality pictures!

Original source:

Goula M, Sesma J-M, Vivas L (2012) Photosharing websites may improve Hemiptera biodiversity knowledge and conservation. In: Popov A, Grozeva S, Simov N, Tasheva E (Eds) Advances in Hemipterology. ZooKeys 319: 93, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.319.4342

Environmental consultants, research ecologists, nature conservation agencies, city managers, translators, and many others, all need to put names to plants at one time or another. The sources used often are not scientifically up-to-date, making it difficult to figure out the accepted name or proper vernacular to use in a vast country like Canada. The VASCAN database simplifies this task for all users.

The database content was developed by a team of botanists led by Dr. Luc Brouillet, a specialist of the Canadian flora, curator of the Marie-Victorin Herbarium, and a researcher at the Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre and Institut de recherche en biologie végétale, Canada. Data are maintained and improved thanks to input from the whole botanical community. The software was developed under the leadership of Peter Desmet, formerly Biodiversity Informatics Manager of Canadensys, a Canada-wide biodiversity information network based at the Biodiversity Centre, and currently LifeWatch team coordinator at the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Belgium.

The VASCAN database comprises names for 5,124 vascular plants in Canada, Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France) and Greenland, roughly half of the North American continent, a zone that includes temperate and boreal forests, prairies, and tundra. The plant groups that make up vascular plants are lycopods, ferns and their relatives, conifers and flowering plants.

The database contains accepted scientific names as well as synonyms, and Canadian vernacular names in English and French (recommended or alternate regional usages). For each plant, the distribution within Canada at the provincial or territorial level is provided both in map and text form. All information is documented with a source.

Users may find information on the plants they are interested in by a simple search, using either a scientific or a vernacular name; all names can be searched. Searches are fast and the results provide all the information on the plant present in VASCAN. Users may also use the checklist builder to create their own, customized lists of plants. They can also download the whole database as a Darwin Core Archive.

Data are being continuously updated with the help of the whole community of Canadian botanists and amateur scientists. All VASCAN data have been released to the public domain and are fully accessible without restriction (under the Creative Common Zero waiver. Canadensys, a Canadian network for biodiversity information, is the publisher of VASCAN.

Original source:

Desmet P, Brouillet L (2013) Database of Vascular Plants of Canada (VASCAN): a community contributed taxonomic checklist of all vascular plants of Canada, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Greenland. PhytoKeys 25: 55-67. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.25.3100 Resource ID: GBIF key: http://gbrds.gbif.org/browse/agent?uuid=3f8a1297-3259-4700-91fc-acc4170b27ce

 

Additional Information:

Brouillet L, Desmet P, Coursol F, Meades SJ, Favreau M, Anions M, Bélisle P, Gendreau C, Shorthouse D and contributors* (2010+). Database of Vascular Plants of Canada (VASCAN). 27189 records. Online at http://data.canadensys.net/vascan, http://dx.doi.org/10.5886/Y7SMZY5P, and http://data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/13558, released on 2010-12-10, version 24 (last updated on 2013-07-22). GBIF key: 3f8a1297-3259-4700-91fc-acc4170b27ce. Data paper ID: doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.25.3100

The new species Echinophyllia tarae is described from the remote and poorly studied Gambier Islands, French Polynesia. Although the new species is common in the lagoon of Gambier Islands, its occurrence elsewhere is unknown. Echinophyllia tarae lives in protected reef habitats and was observed between 5 and 20 m depth. It is a zooxanthellate species which commonly grows on dead coral fragments, which are also covered by crustose coralline algae and fleshy macroalgae.

This species can grow on well illuminated surfaces but also encrusts shaded underhangs and contributes to the formation of coral reefs in the Gambier. It is characterized by large polyps and bright often mottled colourations and it is very plastic in morphology like most hard corals. Patterns of partial death and recovery of the species were often observed and could be due to competition with other benthic invertebrates like the soft-bodied corallimorpharians or zoanthids which can co-occur with this species.

Stony corals are currently under threat by the effects of global warming, ocean acidification and anthropogenic changes of reef structures. Although corals represent a relatively well studied group of charismatic marine invertebrates, much has still to be understood of their biology, evolution, diversity, and biogeography. The discovery of this new species in French Polynesia confirms that our knowledge of hard coral diversity is still incomplete and that the exploration efforts of recent scientific expeditions like Tara Oceans can lead to new insights in a remote and previously poorly studied locations.

This species is named after the Tara vessel which allowed the exploration of coral reefs in Gambier. Moreover, the name “tara” in the Polynesian language may refer to a spiny, pointed object, which applies well to the new species typically featuring pointed skeletal structures. In the same language, Tara is also the name of a sea goddess.

Original Source:

Benzoni F (2013) Echinophyllia tarae sp. n. (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Scleractinia), a new reef coral species from the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia. ZooKeys 318: 59, doi:10.3897/zookeys.318.5351

The new weevil genus was discovered during a routine study of some weevil specimens collected by the Swedish botanist and entomologist Carl Peter Thunberg, a disciple of Carl Linnaeus, during his trips in the then Cape Colony of the Dutch East India Company (now Cape Town, South Africa). The study revealed one tiny specimen measuring barely 1.8mm belonging to an hitherto unknown genus. This specimen was collected between 16 April 1772 and 2 March 1775 or when Thunberg returned from Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) in 1778.

Dr. Miguel A. Alonso-Zarazaga, a weevil specialist at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Madrid, Spain wanted to do a modern study of the species described by Thunberg with the specimens he collected, and particularly this one, which has not been found again since its discovery and description in 1813, after Thunberg’s return to Sweden. His results have been published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The description of the new genus Thunbergapion has allowed other colleagues to identify just a few specimens in other collections that could also belong in the same genus, all from South Africa. ”Now the interest lies in finding populations of these species in the field that can be studied to discover their biology and host plants.”, said Dr. Alonso-Zarazaga, ” Their close relatives living in the Mediterranean region use species of Saint John’s wort as host plants for adults and larvae. These are also present in South Africa, but other plants cannot be ruled out.”

The species of this recently discovered genus could be relict, a term meaning that their populations now cover a small geographic area (in this case in South Africa) but in the past were more widely distributed. It is interesting to see the relationship with Mediterranean species, a link already established for some other groups of animals. But in South Africa the natural vegetation has been strongly altered by man, introducing new plants or modifying large extensions of land for agricultural use, not to mention the urban growth.

”This discovery comes to us from the past.”, said Dr. Alonso-Zarazaga, “Thanks to the good management of old collections like that of Thunberg in Uppsala, we can have a glimpse into the fauna that existed in South Africa in the end of the 18th century and that, perhaps in some cases, could have disappeared. That is why it is important to keep Natural History museums, collecting and keeping samples of the past and present faunas for the future generations. More than 200-year-old, this discovery has enriched the South African biodiversity because the Museum of Evolution of the Uppsala University has played the role in which society cast it.”

Original source:

Alonso-Zarazaga MA (2013) Types of species of Apionidae (Coleoptera) described by Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1848) with description of a new genus. ZooKeys 317: 89-101. doi:10.3897/zookeys.317.5477