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No earlier than last year, did the first, and up until recently only, endemic to Upper Guinea family of torrent tooth-frog come to light. Now, Dr. Michael F. Barej from the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, and his colleagues verify the existence of as many as four new highly endangered species. In their study the researchers provide crucial insights for the conservation of the biodiversity hotspot. Their research on the suggested existence of a complex of cryptic (structurally identical) species is published in the open-access journal  Zoosystematics and Evolution.

Suffice it to say, the family name derives from the frogs’ unique jawbones featuring tusk-like appendages on the bottom jaw and curved upper teeth. Meanwhile, the tadpoles are equipped with a sucker-like mouth. While easy to distinguish from the rest West African tooth-frog families, the species within the group are overall identical. This is the reason why they have all been assigned to the O. natator species for more than a century.

The present analyses revealed an unexpected high molecular variation. This and complementary biogeographical patterns made the presence of additional species in this presumably monospecific (comprising only one species) frog family likely. The description of four new species by Dr. Barej’s team is based on combinative analyses of genetics and morphological characters.

The researchers also claim that “recognition and description of species is just a first step which provides the baseline for subsequent studies to gather further data on the ecology or behaviour – or simply: naming does not mean knowing a species”.

The presented results call for the IUCN Red List category “Endangered” for all of the newly described species. These frogs occur along strong currents, cascades and waterfalls in the few remaining patches of primary forests in West Africa. The scientists fear that all “West African torrent-frog species are at risk of becoming extinct because of habitat loss in the Upper Guinean biodiversity hotspot, whose “true” biodiversity is still far from being completely known”.

The increase of species in this unique lineage and their distribution pattern further encourages other researchers to search for cryptic and undescribed species in the forests of the Upper Guinean biodiversity hotspot. Here the scientists highlight its vulnerability by assessing the morphological variation of all known populations of West African tooth-frogs through molecular techniques.

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Original source:

Barej MF, Schmitz A, Penner J, Doumbia J, Sandberger-Loua L, Hirschfeld M, Brede C, Emmrich M, Kouamé NG, Hillers A, Gonwouo NL, Nopper J, Adeba PJ, Bangoura MA, Gage C, Anderson G, Rödel M-O (2015) Life in the spray zone – overlooked diversity in West African torrent-frogs (Anura, Odontobatrachidae, Odontobatrachus). Zoosystematics and Evolution 91(2): 115-149. doi: 10.3897/zse.91.5127

A new species of nectar-feeding bat from Brazil was discovered unexpectedly amid a research into the whole genus ofLonchophylla. The study is available in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

During their study Drs. Ricardo Moratelli and Daniela Dias found that some of the specimens had their ventral (abdominal) fur considerably paler and some of their measurements were inconsistent with those of the type material of L. mordax, which species they had previously been confused with. To their surprise, a closer look revealed that this was indeed a completely different species, previously unknown to science.

The new species was named L. inexpectata – inspired by the surprise element in this new discovery. Using specimens from all currently recognised Brazilian representative of the Lonchophylla genus, the scientists concluded that what they had thought a mere variation of the colouring, is in fact one of the species’ distinguishable characteristics. Others include differences in the skull and the teeth morphology.

Specimens from the ‘unexpected’ bat species had been misidentified for more than a century, the scientists point out.

Vouchers used in the research are currently being preserved in a number of the world’s most reputable collections, including those in the American Museum of Natural History, London’s Natural History Museum, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and Brazil’s Museu Nacional.

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Original source:

Moratelli R, Dias D (2015) A new species of nectar-feeding bat, genus Lonchophylla, from the Caatinga of Brazil (Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae). ZooKeys 514: 73-91. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.514.10013

Dr. Michele Rodda describes two new tropical plants species from the Hoya genus, found on the world’s third largest island Borneo. The genus is one of the largest and most complex plant groups in Asia. The first to be described in the paper, H. ruthiae, is characterised with its lack of coloured milk-like sap typical for most of the Hoya species, and H. bakoensis – with its strict preference for growing epiphytically (without causing any harm to its host) and rooting inside ant nests. The study is published in the open-access journal PhytoKeys.

Collected by Ruth Kiew in Sabah in 2000, H. ruthiae was named after the tropical botanist based at the Forest Research Institute Malaysia. It grows on limestone with its so far only location being the Malaysian state. Therefore, its conservation status is not yet known and the plant species is categorised as Data Deficient following the IUCN guidelines. However, it is widely available in cultivation.

The second new species, H. bakoensis, was discovered by the author of the present paper in 2015 and was named after its for now sole locality, the Bako National Park in Malaysia. The species prefers moist, shady kerangas heath forests near streams. Most often, it sprouts its seedlings from the openings of small ant nests from inside hollow tree trunks and climbs up its host tree likely in need for more light. Additionally, the author points out that H. bakoensiscan be recognised from most of its relatives because of its smaller flowers.

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Original source:

Rodda M (2015) Two new species of Hoya R.Br. (Apocynaceae, Asclepiadoideae) from Borneo.PhytoKeys 53: 83-93. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.53.5079

The relative importance of a journal within its field is often measured by metrics known as the Impact Factor (IF). Surrounded by some controversy in recent years, the IF still often rules in the scientific community when it comes to establishing how influential a journal is.

We are happy to announce that another two of our journals – MycoKeys and Nature Conservation are now registered to be indexed and abstracted by Thomson Reuters and we will be anticipating them receiving an Impact Factor in a couple of years time.
The two journals are now added to:

• Science Citation Index Expanded;

• Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition;

• Current Contents®/Agriculture, Biology, and Environmental Sciences;

• Biological Abstracts;

• BIOSIS Previews.

Started in 2011 MycoKeys, Editor-in-Chief – PRof. Thorsten Lumbsch, The Field Museum, Chicago,  was a natural addition to Pensoft family of journals. Together with our flagship zoological journal ZooKeys (granted its first Impact Factor in 2010), and its botanical counterpart PhytoKeys (given its first IF this year), MycoKeys was created to accommodate articles covering the fungi kingdom.

Nature Conservation, with Editor-in-Chief Prof. Klaus Henle, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, was launched a year later as a part of the EU funded FP7 project SCALES. The journal aims to mobilize ideas and data in all theoretical and applied aspects of nature conservation – biological, ecological, social and economic.

Both journals came a long way from their creation until this present achievement thanks to the dedicated work and valuable contributions from authors, reviewers and editors. We would like to thank everyone for the great work!

Dr. Jose Fernandez-Triana and his team revised the wasp genera Microplitis andSnellenius, which at time have proven to be difficult to recognize. Their findings provide new evidence for them being separate genera. The scientists also added as many as 28 new species of moth predators between the two groups.

During the research they used species from the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG) in Costa Rica as well as previously published detailed data. As a result, the biologists managed to make their suggestion about the relation between the different species and their hosts. The study can be found in the open-access journal Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift.

Belonging to one of the main groups of parasitizing caterpillars subfamilies, the wasp genera of Microplitis and Snellenius are quite unique in comparison to their relatives. However, some of the species from the two presently studied groups are almost identical physically. Therefore, the scientists needed to turn to ecological, biological and molecular characteristics in order to define all of them as separate taxa.

Dr. Fernandez-Triana and his team’s research was one of the first to look into the tropical populations of the Microplitis and Snellenius genera. Their work answered another unresolved question: all species from the two studied genera that live in the tropical region of Costa Rica have thick hard cocoons and most of them spend the dry months inactively in them.

Another long-argued problem has been the dependency between the localities of each genera and their specialised hosts, as it’s been concluded that they are highly selective. Although in their present study the scientists admit that additional Neotropical areas need to be studied, they have concluded that all of the species are “unambiguously specialists,” feeding on one or a few related species exclusively. Some of them are actually so specialised that they are restricted to a particular habitat or have been collected only at specific times of the year.

Specimens of the new species can now be seen in some of the most reputed natural museums, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Natural History Museum of London and the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad in Santo Domingo, Costa Rica.

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Original source:

Fernandez-Triana JL, Whitfield JB, Smith MA, Kula RR, Hallwachs W, Janzen DH (2015) Revision of the genera Microplitis and Snellenius (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, Costa Rica, with a key to all species previously described from Mesoamerica. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 62(1): 137-202. doi: 10.3897/dez.62.5276

Drs. Carole Baldwin and Ross Robertson from the Smithsonian Institution discovered a new small goby fish that differs from its relatives not only in its size and colors, but also in the depth of its habitat (70-80 m) in the southern Caribbean. Their finding comes as a part of the institution’s Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP). This is why the scientists gave it the nameCoryphopterus curasub in recognition of the Curasub submersible that was used in their deep-reef exploration. Their study can be found in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Marine biodiversity inhabiting shallow Caribbean coral reefs has been studied for more than 150 years, but much less is known about what lives at depths just below those accessible with conventional SCUBA gear. Thanks to the availability of a privately owned, manned submersible on the island of Curacao, the Curasub, scientists are now able to intensively study depths to 300 m (1,000 ft).

“This is the fourth new deep-reef fish species described in two years from Curasub diving off Curacao,” explained Baldwin, “Many more new deep-reef fish species have already been discovered and await description, and even more await discovery.” She also pointed out that new species of mollusks and crustaceans have also been discovered, and a “biology bonanza” is highly likely as tropical deep reefs continue to be explored.

In addition to the new goby species, the authors report on the collection of a related goby species some 50 m (164 ft.) deeper than it was previously known. Knowledge of species’ upper and lower depth limits is information that Baldwin and Robertson are establishing for numerous fish species in the southern Caribbean, and in this study they tabulated and graphed depth information for the 14 known species of Coryphopterus gobies.

“Deep reefs are diverse ecosystems in tropical seas that science has largely missed,” Baldwin explained, “too deep to access using SCUBA gear and too shallow to be of much interest to deep-diving submersibles capable of descending thousands of meters.” “How incomplete is our picture of tropical reef biodiversity if so little attention has been devoted to depths just below those home to shallow coral reefs? We don’t know,” she admitted.

“Imagine conducting a census of people living in Washington, DC, but you only survey those inhabiting ground-level housing structures. If you don’t know about the people living on second, third, fourth, etc., floors in apartment buildings and condominiums in a city packed with them, you’re not getting a very complete picture of who lives here. Scientists’ ignorance of the biodiversity inhabiting depths within a couple hundred meters of shallow coral reefs is similar.”

“We know that in temperate coastal areas, some fish species are being found at higher latitudes than previously recorded,” Baldwin said, “presumably a response to warming surface waters.”

This hypothesis poses the question whether the fish in tropics could move deeper as well reacting to the climate change. Since no historical data on the topic is available, Baldwin’s suggestion is to carry on digging into deep-reef exploration.

“By thoroughly investigating reef ecosystems that lie just below shallow coral reefs, describing new species, documenting depth ranges of new and known species, we are providing the baseline information necessary to detect changes in the future.”

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Original source:

Baldwin CC, Robertson DR (2015) A new, mesophotic Coryphopterus goby (Teleostei, Gobiidae) from the southern Caribbean, with comments on relationships and depth distributions within the genus. ZooKeys 513: 123-142. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.513.9998