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The plant genus Lepidiums is a small group of representatives of the economically important cabbage family Brassicaceae. Most commonly known as peppercress or peppergrass Lepidiums includes around 180 species worldwide. In a new extensive study, published in the open access journal PhytoKeys, scientists explore the diversity within the New Zealand Lepidiums oleraceum and allied species.

Lepidiums oleraceum, is known in New Zealand, as “Cook’s Scurvy Grass” because Captain James Cook, and other early explorers of that island nation, ate the plant as a scurvy preventive. Early botanists long recognised that Lepidiums oleraceum was very variable but by the time they came to seriously study this variation, the species was already extinct throughout much of its former range, making critical morphological studies difficult, and to make matters worse, without recourse to modern taxonomic methods, because past botanists had tended to describe new species and varieties.

Thus, the PhytoKeys paper, is the result of 17 years careful study of the range of variation in L. oleraceum utilising extensive field work, cultivation and genetic studies, as well as critical study of the type material held throughout the world. The end result presents the first serious revision of the New Zealand L. oleraceum “comple”‘ offered since 1899. The paper not only describes 10 new species but offers insights into their ecology and conservation status.

Scientists from New Zealand, led by Dr. Peter de Lange, Science & Capability Group, provide a full revision of 16 species, six previously recognised by other botanists but, remarkably 10 are described as new. Their work finishes a revision of the New Zealand Lepidiums species, which, aside from the species they treat in their paper includes a further four species, two of which (L. kawarau and L. sisymbrioides) are internationally significant because they are the only dioecious members of the Brassicaceae (i.e. they have both male and female plants).

Within the Lepidiums oleraceum “complex” the scientists recognise a great diversity occurring not only in New Zealand but also on many of that nation’s smaller surrounding islands and island groups. For example, the Kermadec Islands (which lie 1000 km north-east of New Zealand) support (as well as L. oleraceum) the newly described L. castellanum which is found there decorating the fortress like cliffs of the southern islands of the Kermadec group.

Lepidiums oleraceum, and many of these newly described species are believed to have once been abundant in New Zealand. All have declined as a consequence of habitat loss, loss of ecosystem functionality, through over-collection by botanists and as a consequence of the arrival of pests and diseases previously unknown in that country. The PhytoKeys paper reveals that there are now only scattered and fragmented populations left of all the species, which raises concerns about their conservation status. Indeed most of the 16 plants described in the study are already listed as “Threatened/Nationally Critical” by the New Zealand people.

The high extinction rate of these beautiful plants is exemplified by the newly described Lepidiums amissum. The epithet ‘amissum’ is derived from the Latin ”amissus” meaning ”lost” and is used here to refer to the loss though extinction, of this plant from the New Zealand flora. The description of the species was only made possible because of herbarium specimens collected between 1880 and 1817.

By global standards New Zealand is a hotspot for plant diversity with 83% of its estimated 2400 indigenous plants considered endemic. Of these plants, about one in 10 are believed to be threatened, and the numbers of threatened plants are rising. Currently though, New Zealand is lucky, just six of their endemic species are regarded as extinct. However, with the recognition of L. amissum that figure has now climbed to seven.

The PhytoKeys Lepidiums paper is seen by the authors as a critical first step toward saving New Zealand’s Lepidiums diversity. The authors are now working on a further paper looking at genetic variation within all the species, as a further step toward deciding which populations should be managed to prevent further extinctions.

Original Source:

de Lange PJ, Heenan PB, Houliston GJ, Rolfe JR, Mitchell AD (2013) New Lepidiums (Brassicaceae) from New Zealand. PhytoKeys 24: 1. doi: 10.3897/PhytoKeys.24.4375

Passiflora is a genus of beautiful plants commonly known as the passion flowers or passion vines. The most famous representative of this group is the passion fruit, favorite to many. Passiflora contains around 530 species with native ranges throughout the southern United States and Mexico as well as Central and South America. In addition, there are 24 species of Passiflora endemic to the Old World. In China, the native Passiflora exhibit high levels of endemism, seldomly display overlapping distributions, and are in general extremely rare. A new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys provides a morphological revision of the beautiful Chinese species Passiflora kwangtungensis and raises concerns towards its current conservation status.

Passiflora kwangtungensis is a critically endangered Chinese species known from the Guangxi, Guangdong, and Jiangxi Provinces. This beautiful plant is characterized by stunning clusters of white – greenish flowers and a small spherical fruit. Field observations of this flower decreased rapidly during the 1970s to 1980s, and it was suspected that this species might have been completely extirpated. No new specimens have been collected for the period of more than 14 years until recently, when small isolated populations of this species have been rediscovered in Hunan Province in a new locality.

While not often discussed, a significant factor affecting the distribution of the native Chinese Passiflora has been the deforestation that has occurred within China over the past 60 years. With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, country-wide forest destruction accelerated rapidly with industrialization. Another reason for the rarity of Chinese Passiflora is the geographical isolation of the species, compounded by the fact that the majority of Passiflora are self-incompatible, which may effectively decrease population size even further.

The leading author of this study, Dr. Shawn Krosnick, Department of Biology, Southern Arkansas University, expresses her concerns regarding the conservation status of this beautiful and rare Passiflora representative: “Under IUCN Red List guidelines, Passiflora kwangtungensis should be classified as critically endangered. With just 14 plants observed in Hunan over three years of surveying, this species merits special attention given its small population size, limited genetic diversity, and self-incompatibility. I hope this study will provide the needed justification for protection of P. kwangtungensis, and possibly lead to restoration of this species throughout its ancestral range.”

Original Source:

Krosnick SE, Yu X-L, Deng Y (2013) The rediscovery of Passiflora kwangtungensis Merr. (subgenus Decaloba supersection Disemma): a critically endangered Chinese endemic. PhytoKeys 23: 5, doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.23.3497

Brazilian paleontologists Taissa Rodrigues, of the Federal University of Espirito Santo, and Alexander W. A. Kellner, of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, have just presented the most extensive review yet available of toothed pterosaurs from the Cretaceous of England. The study features detailed taxonomic information, diagnoses and photographs of 30 species and was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Pterosaurs from the Cretaceous of England were first described by British naturalists Richard Owen and Harry Seeley in the 19th century, when little was known about the diversity of the group, resulting in the description of dozens of species, all based on very fragmentary remains, represented mostly by the tips of the snouts of these animals. However, more recent findings of pterosaur fossils have challenged views on their diversity.

Results show that these pterosaurs had a remarkable diversity in their appearances. Some species had head crests of different sizes and shapes, while others had none. Most had large teeth at the tip of their snouts and were fish eaters, but others had smaller teeth, suggesting different feeding preferences. The paleontologists were able to identify fourteen different species, belonging to at least five different genera, showing a greater diversity than previously thought.

Most of these fossils were found in a deposit known as the Cambridge Greensand, located in the eastern part of the country. This unit, one of the most important for the study of flying reptiles, records a past marine environment where the bones that were already fossilized and buried, were eroded, exposed to weathering, and then buried again. Cycles of erosion and burial must have taken place during several years. Due to this peculiarity, the pterosaur assemblage from this deposit probably presents temporal mixing of faunas, thus explaining the high diversity found.

Another find was that these English flying reptiles turned out to be closely related to species unearthed in northeastern Brazil and eastern China. According to Dr. Rodrigues, ‘This is very interesting, especially because the continents had already drifted apart. If these animals were migratory, we would expect to find the same species in all these deposits.’ Instead, the scientists have discovered that England, Brazil and China all had their own species and genera.

Analysis of fossils from other continents showed that this group of pterosaurs was already widespread in the whole planet 110 million years ago, and must have been important faunistic elements at this time of the Cretaceous period, being early bird competitors, before they went extinct a few million years later.

Original source:

Rodrigues T, Kellner AWA (2013) Taxonomic review of the Ornithocheirus complex (Pterosauria) from the Cretaceous of England. ZooKeys 308: 1. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.308.5559

A new peer reviewed data paper describes a unique database spanning the full range of indigenous and exotic ants occurring in Belgium. The paper, published in the open access journal Zookeys analyses the history, content and use of the FORMIDABEL database, which includes more than 27,000 records.

The paper uses a new pattern of citing the data resource, aimed at bringing additional credit to the authors and their institutions (see Resource Citation below).

FORMIDABEL is a collaboration between the Flemish ants working group "Polyergus" and the Wallonian ants working group "FourmisWalBru". The original database was created in 2002 in the context of the preliminary red data book of Flemish ants and data from the Southern part of Belgium (Wallonia and Brussels) were added in 2005. In 2012 this dataset was again updated for the creation of the first Belgian Ants Atlas. The main purpose of this atlas was to generate maps for all outdoor-living ant species in Belgium using an overlay of the standard used Belgian ecoregions. By using this overlay for most species a restricted distribution pattern in Belgium can be observed, mainly based on existing vegetation and soil types. The digital version of the Belgian Ant Atlas is published on http://www.formicidae-atlas.be.

The records featured in FORMIDABEL originate from a wide range of sources including collections, field sampling and literature. The oldest occurrences date back as far as May 1866, while the most recent are from August 2012. FORMIDABEL is a work in progress and the database is updated twice a year to provide up to date information on the ant fauna in Belgium.

The latest version of the dataset is publicly and freely accessible through this url: http://ipt.biodiversity.be/resource.do?r=formidabel.

The dataset is also retrievable via the GBIF data portal through this link: http://data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/14697
A dedicated geo-portal, developed by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform is accessible at: http://www.formicidae-atlas.be

Resource citation:

Polyergus Working Group and FourmisWalBru Working Group (2013 -). FORMIDABEL: The Belgian Ants Database, 27264 records. Contributed by Brosens D, Vankerkhoven F, Ignace D, Wegnez P, Noé N, Heughebaert A, Bortels J and W Dekoninck. Online at http://ipt.biodiversity.be/resource.do?r=formidabel and, http://www.formicidae-atlas.be, Version 1.0 (last updated on 2013-04-19), GBIF key: http://gbrds.gbif.org/browse/agent?uuid=b528799a-2d52-4023-aa02-9ce081e3ca5f. Data Paper ID: doi: 10.3897/zookeys.306.4898

Original Source:

Brosens D, Vankerkhoven F, Ignace D, Wegnez P, Noй N, Heughebaert A, Bortels J, Dekoninck W (2013) FORMIDABEL; The Belgian Ants Database. ZooKeys 306: 59, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.306.4898

Additional Information:

What is a Data Paper?

A Data Paper is a scholarly journal publication whose primary purpose is to describe a dataset or a group of datasets, rather than to report a research investigation. As such, it contains facts about data, not hypotheses and arguments in support of those hypotheses based upon data, as found in a conventional research article. Its purposes are three-fold:

• to provide a citable journal publication that brings scholarly credit to data publishers;
   
• to describe the data in a structured human-readable form;
   
• to bring the existence of the data to the attention of the scholarly community.

A new species of scorpion Tityus (Atreus) crassicauda has been discovered from the extraordinarily biodiversity rich region of the Ecuadorian Andes. The intriguing new species is classed as medium sized, but still around the Impressive 5 cm in length. It is distinguished by reddish brown overall coloration, broken by peculiar decoration of 3 longitudinal brown stripes , separated by yellow zones. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.

The new species belongs to the genus Tityus, which is part of the scorpion family Buthidae. This genus, with more than 200 known species, is the most speciose one among all the buthid genera. The animals of this group can range from very small (smaller than 3 cm) to very large species of up to 12 cm in length. All scorpions possess venom glands and several representatives of this family, including also species of the genus Tityus are also known to produce powerful venom that can be deadly to humans.

"Although scorpions can be considered as fascinating animals, the interest shown by people in general is only connected with their negative reputation as a ‘killer of man’. Nonetheless, only a limited number of species probably are actually responsible of serious or lethal incidents. Initially, research on scorpions focused primarily on descriptive taxonomy and general anatomy, followed by some medical research on venom biochemistry. More recently, however, research on scorpions expanded greatly to encompass many aspects of evolutionary biology of these fascinating species.", comments the lead author of the study, Dr. Wilson R. Lourenço, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris.

Many authors working on the floras and faunas of the Neotropical region seem to agree that the possible ‘epicentre’ of global diversity occurs namely in the tropical and subtropical Andean region (the upper Amazon, North of Peru, and most of Ecuador and Southern Colombia). Ecuadorian scorpion fauna remains one of the less well studied among those of South America. The Ecuadorian Andes may in fact have many surprises stored for future studies of the scorpion fauna there.

 

 

Original Source:

Lourenço WR, Ythier E (2013) The remarkable scorpion diversity in the Ecuadorian Andes and description of a new species of Tityus C. L. Koch, 1836 (Scorpiones, Buthidae). ZooKeys307: 1–13, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.307.5334

A new species of tiny blenniiform fish has been discovered in the biodiversity rich waters of the southern Caribbean. Haptoclinus dropi is only around 2cm in length with a beautiful color pattern that includes iridescence on the fins. The proposed common name of the species is four-fin blenny, due to the division of the dorsal fin into four sections, which is a distinguishing feature of the genus and unique among blenniiform fishes. The study was published in the open access journalZookeys.

This beautiful new species was discovered as a lucky bycatch during targeted specimen catching at 157-167 m depth off Curaçao as a part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP). The new species, Haptoclinus dropi, gets its name from the project’s abbreviation and is one of numerous new ray-finned fish species emerging from this project.

For DROP expeditions the Substation Curaçao‘s manned submersible Curasub was used to catch specimens. While generally used as tourist attraction because it travels at much greater depths than divers can reach, the Curasub is also used for scientific marine research. Targeted fish specimens are collected with the sub’s two flexible, hydraulic arms, but very often small non-targeted fish are also caught in the process.

"Below the depths accessible using scuba gear and above the depths typically targeted by deep-diving submersibles, tropical deep reefs are productive ocean ecosystems that science has largely missed. They are home to diverse assemblages of new and rare species that we are only just beginning to understand," explains the lead author of the study Dr Carole Baldwin, Smithsonian Institution.

 

 

Original Source:

Baldwin CC, Robertson RD (2013) A new Haptoclinus blenny (Teleostei, Labrisomidae) from deep reefs off Curaзao, southern Caribbean, with comments on relationships of the genus.ZooKeys 306: 71–81, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.306.5198