Pensoft blog - Part 79

Heat-loving Australian ants believe in diversity, hint 74 species new to science

The ‘furnace ants’ or ‘honeypot ants’ present a very large genus of ants, Melophorus, confined to Australia. Long believed to be megadiverse, some scientists have even suggested that the group may contain ‘well over 1000 species’. However, to this point, only 32 species and subspecies had been described.

Scientists Dr Brian Heterick of Curtin University, Dr Mark Castalanelli of Ecodiagnostics Pty Ltd and Dr Steve Shattuck of the Australian National University, funded by an internationally competitive Australian Biological Resources (ABRS) grant, set out to find the true facts.

As a result, they discovered as many as 74 new species belonging to Melophorus. In their study, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, they also provide a taxonomic key to the workers of a total of 93 species in the genus.

Among the studied ants, there are quite bizarre ones, including a species (Melophorus hirsutus) whose eyes are strangely protruding out of his head to a varying degree. In the extreme cases, the eyes are so pointy that could be likened to ice-cream cones. Named many years ago, this ant appears to be older than the rest of the examined living species. Furthermore, unlike most of them, it does not seem adapted to heat. It is confined to the wet eastern coast of Australia.

Dr Heterick spent two weeks collecting specimens in the often rugged and forbidding terrain of Western Australia, while the team also asked a number of major museum collections to loan them specimens.

The newly collected ants were placed in alcohol and subjected to genetic tests using one mitochondrial and four nuclear genes. The findings were then compared with those from physical examinations to prepare the taxonomic key – a set of distinctive features per species that can be used to differentiate within the group.

Given the generally complex nature of these ants, the authors expect for the genus to further expand in future. They speculate that even though the numbers may increase to around 100 species, not the ‘well over 1000’ previously predicted, they still illustrate an incredible diversity.

The authors estimate that Melophorus arose around 35 million years ago. The closest relatives of the genus are also confined to the Australasian region with the exception of a single genus living in South America.

Furthermore, the genus is also quite astonishing thanks to another trait shared among the species.

“By the way, this group of ants has a thing or two to tell those of us who get lost easily!” comments lead author Dr Brian Heterick.

“They can find their way home in a featureless landscape by means of an internal compass influenced by information gathered on earlier journeys. We are not the first species to use a computing system!”

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Original source:

Heterick B, Castalanelli M, Shattuck S (2017) Revision of the ant genus Melophorus (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). ZooKeys 700: 1-420. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.700.11784

An extraordinary cave animal found in Eastern Turkmenistan

A remote cave in Eastern Turkmenistan was found to shelter a marvelous cave-adapted inhabitant that turned out to represent a species and genus new to science. This new troglodyte is the first of its order from Central Asia and the first strictly subterranean terrestrial creature recorded in the country.

Kaptarhana cave is located at the foot of Koytendag Mountain, one of the most distinctive mountain landscapes in Central Asia. A curious amalgam of desert landscapes, often highly dissected by ravines, foothills with ridges, cuestas and fan plains, the mountain is a potential home to key biodiversity gems still awaiting discovery.

Also remarkable for its richness of caves and other limestone formations, Koytendag Mountain has more than 300 caves, sinkholes and potholes, hitherto registered from its territory, including the sixth largest cave system in Asia Gap Goutan/Promezdutachnaya stretched at more than 57 km underground. Also worthy of a mention is the beautiful cave Gulshirin, known for its snow white passages and extraordinary formations.

Another fine example, cave Kaptarhana, presents a unique habitat for a high number of cave-adapted animals, among which is the new species of a few millimetres long, pale and eyeless insect-like creature, whose relatives in the order Diplura also go by the name of two-pronged bristletails.

The scientists named it Turkmenocampa mirabilis, where the genus name (Turkmenocampa) refers to the creature’s country of origin (Turkmenistan), while the species name (mirabilis) means “unusual, amazing, wonderful, remarkable” in Latin to highlight its unique morphology and position among its relatives.

The new species is described in the open access journal Subterranean Biology by Dr. Alberto Sendra, University of Alcalá, Spain, Prof. Boris Sket, University of Ljubljana, and Prof. Pavel Stoev, National Museum of Natural History, Bulgaria.

In fact, Stoev and Sket were the first speleobiologists to visit and explore Kaptarhana in nearly 43 years. The survey was part of their study into the caves of Koytendag State Nature Reserve, Turkmenistan, conducted in 2015 and endorsed by a Memorandum of Understanding between the State Committee on Environment Protection and Land Resources of Turkmenistan and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

To discover the new species, the scientists spent about 8 hours in the cave looking for specimens and placed pitfall traps with smelly cheese used as a bait. While visual observations had no success due to the cave being very spacious, a number of exemplars of the hitherto undescribed animal fell victims of the traps.

“What we have here is not only a new remarkable organism, but also an amazing and unusual cave critter that has undergone a long evolutionary journey to adapt to the underground environment of Central Asia,” says the lead author Alberto Sendra.

The authors see their latest discovery as a proof of the importance of Kaptarhana as a refuge for a number of endemic invertebrates and an opportunity to draw attention to its protection under the laws of Turkmenistan.

“While many speleobiologists consider the terrestrial cave fauna in Central Asia as poor, it is places such as Kaptarhana that can turn the tables by giving us new insights about the biodiversity richness, evolutionary history, formation and functioning of the underground ecosystems of this part of the world.” comments Stoev.

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Original source:

Sendra A, Boris Sket B, Stoev P (2017) A striking new genus and species of troglobitic Campodeidae (Diplura) from Central Asia. Subterranean Biology 23: 47-68. https://doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.23.14631

Connecting plants and society: The Shenzhen Declaration, a new roadmap for plant sciences

Environmental degradation, unsustainable resource use, and biodiversity loss are just a few points in the long list of pertinent issues that call for collaborative solutions from science and society together.

Unanimously supported by participants at the XIX International Botanical Congress, held in July 2017, Shenzhen, China, the Shenzhen Declaration for Plant Sciences, runs under the slogan of “Uniting plant sciences and society to build a green, sustainable Earth” and comes in response to the rapid changes experienced by both our Planet and society.

On 29 July 2017 in the closing session of the Congress, nearly 7,000 plant scientists from 77 countries endorsed a statement to focus their research and educational efforts on finding solutions to the growing problems of of our changing world.

Central to the declaration comes a commitment from its signatories and supporters alike to take immediate in both their lifestyles and their research programs to find solutions before an environmental threshold is crossed that will inevitably lead to irreversible degradation of our societies, natural habitats, and biodiversity.

Although it was largely agreed that the immense changes are the result of unbridled human activities, it was also made clear that it is still in society’s power to find solutions to reverse or slow down some of these processes.

Many scientists believe that humanity and the planet may have already crossed that threshold,” explain PhytoKeys Editor-in-Chief, John Kress, Smithsonian Institution, USA and his Deputy Editor-in-Chief Sandy Knapp, Natural History Museum London, UK, in their dedicated Editorial for the journal. “However, the authors of the Declaration and the botanists who have endorsed it believe that time still exists for answers to be found and implemented. However, that time is short.”

The Declaration calls for collaborative approaches by the rapidly evolving field of Plant Science and other disciplines and society, including implementation of new technologies, valuing local and traditional knowledge and greater engagement with the public.

Paving a solid and inspiring roadmap for development for the botanical community, the Declaration outlines seven priorities:

To become responsible scientists and research communities who pursue plant sciences in the context of a changing world.
To enhance support for the plant sciences to achieve global sustainability.
To cooperate and integrate across nations and regions and to work together across disciplines and cultures to address common goals.
To build and use new technologies and big data platforms to increase exploration and understanding of nature.
To accelerate the inventory of life on Earth for the wise use of nature and the benefit of humankind.
To value, document, and protect indigenous, traditional, and local knowledge about plants and nature.
To engage the power of the public with the power of plants through greater participation and outreach, innovative education, and citizen science.

Find the full text of the Shenzhen Declaration, co-published in the open access journal PhytoKeys and the Journal of Systematics and Evolution.

“We believe that, by working together, we can achieve these goals and connect the increasingly innovative plant sciences with the needs and strengths of human societies.” comment the authors of the Declaration. “We strongly believe that only through such collaboration we can work towards creating new paths to a green, sustainable future for Earth, where plants and people in harmony is at the centre.”

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Original Sources:

Shenzhen Declaration Drafting Committee (2017) The Shenzhen Declaration on Plant Sciences – Uniting plant sciences and society to build a green, sustainable Earth. PhytoKeys 86: 3-7. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.86.20859

Kress WJ, Knapp S (2017) The Shenzhen Declaration on Plant Sciences: Too late or just in time? PhytoKeys 86: 1-2. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.86.20712

* Image Credits: This image is designed for the Shenzhen Declaration on Plant Sciences by Genlin Jiao, Alice Tangerini and Jun Wen. Photo credits go to Chip Clark, Genlin Jiao, Hong Jin, Sandra Knapp, Steven Manchester, Jun Wen, Bob Wick and Li Zhang. The picture on the top row (right) appeared in the Los Angeles Times on April 7, 2017.

Six new sponge species and new symbiotic associations from the Indonesian coral triangle

Comprising more than 17,000 islands, the Indonesian archipelago is one of the world’s most biodiverse places on Earth.

Sponges, aquatic organisms whose bodies consist of numerous pores to allow the ingress of water, are key components of this richness and play a fundamental role in the survival of coral reef habitats. Furthermore, they are also known for their medicinal benefits.

Unfortunately, due to the paucity of taxonomic expertise, the sponges from the Indonesian reefs are often ignored in monitoring surveys and conservation programmes, while their diversity is largely underestimated.

Researchers from the Italian Università Politecnica delle Marche and Università degli Studi di Genova, PharmaMar, Spain, and University of Sam Ratulangi, Indonesia, describe six new species in their paper in the open access journal, ZooKeys.

Inspired by their extraordinary biodiversity, the researchers teamed up with the pharmaceutical company PharmaMar to conduct several expeditions in the waters of North Sulawesi Island.

The authors reported a total of 94 demosponge species belonging to 33 families living in the North Sulawesi Island. Amongst them, there are six species new to science and two previously unknown symbiotic relationships.

Seven of the recorded species were collected for the very first time since their original description.

However, these findings are still scarce, given the abundance of the sponges in similar localities in the Indonesian archipelago.

In conclusion, the authors note that the marine diversity in Indonesia is still far from being well known.

“Thanks to this impressive diversity, these areas are important spots for diving tourism and require the urgent development of sustainable tourism practices,” they say.

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Original source:

Calcinai B, Bastari A, Bavestrello G, Bertolino M, Horcajadas SB, Pansini M, Makapedua DM, Cerrano C (2017) Demosponge diversity from North Sulawesi, with the description of six new species. ZooKeys 680: 105-150. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.680.12135

Light at the end of the tunnel: Restored forest now shelters dozens of endangered species

During the last twenty years, scientists worked hard to protect and restore the scattered patches of a dilapidated forest and its surroundings of agricultural and fallow vegetation in southern Benin.

With the help of their locally recruited assistants, Peter Neuenschwander, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Benin, and Aristide Adomou, University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin, successfully thinned out the alien timber growing there and introduced 253 species, whose seeds and plantlets they had managed to collect from the last remnants of the original forest. Their research article is published in the open access journal Nature Conservation.

Today, the rehabilitated forest in Drabo harbours about 600 species of plants and constitutes a sanctuary for many animals, including the critically endangered and endemic red-bellied monkey.

Over the course of the last two decades, pantropical weedy species declined, while West-African forest species increased in numbers. Of the former, fifty-two species, mostly trees, shrubs and lianas, are listed as threatened – more than those in any other existing forest in Benin. Furthermore, some of the critically endangered species amongst them can be found exclusively in the last small, often sacred forests in Benin, which while covering merely 0.02% of the national territory, harbour 64% of all critically endangered plant species.

“The biodiversity richness of the rehabilitated forests of Drabo now rivals that of natural rainforest remnants of the region,” note the authors.

The newly restored forest in Drabo is relatively easy to access due to its proximity to large towns. It is intended to become an educational and research centre maintained by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. In fact, it already serves as an exemplary forest in the region.

With their initiative, the scientists and their followers demonstrate that by involving local communities and taking their customs into consideration, the safety of exposed precious ecosystems, even if located in a densely populated area, can be effectively assured.

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Original source:

Neuenschwander P, Adomou AC (2017) Reconstituting a rainforest patch in southern Benin for the protection of threatened plants. Nature Conservation 21: 57-82. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.21.13906

Threatened Alabama snail renamed after a case of mistaken identity

Contrary to what scientists have known for over 100 years, the Painted Rocksnail turns out to have never existed outside the Coosa River system

Alabama has some of the highest diversity of freshwater snails in the world, but many snails are at high risk of extinction.

An essential part of determining extinction risk is knowing the range of a given species and determining how much its range has contracted owing to anthropogenic impacts, but mistaken identity or misidentification can complicate conservation efforts.

The Painted Rocksnail, a small snail from the Coosa River system, has been mistakenly identified as other species for over 100 years.

In a study published in the open access journal ZooKeys, scientists Dr. Nathan Whelan, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Dr. Paul Johnson and Jeff Garner, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Dr. Ellen Strong, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, tackled the identity of the Painted Rocksnail, a small federally threatened species native to the Mobile River basin in Alabama.

Freshwater snails are notoriously difficult to identify, as the shells of many species can look very similar. Keeping this in mind, the researchers began to notice that many shells identified as the Painted Rocksnail in museums around the world were misidentified specimens of the Spotted Rocksnail, another snail species found in Alabama.

After examining shells at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, National Museum of Natural History, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Florida Museum of Natural History, and Natural History Museum in London, in addition to hundreds of hours of their own sampling throughout the Mobile River basin, the authors determined that all previous reports of the Painted Rocksnail from outside the Coosa River system were mistakes.

Despite the Painted Rocksnail dwelling in well-studied rivers near large population centers, mistaken identity of the species has persisted almost since the species was described back in 1861 by Isaac Lea.

Only after careful examination of shells collected in the last 150 years and analyses of live animals were the researchers able to confidently determine that the Painted Rocksnail never occurred outside the Coosa River system.

The study has implications for the conservation of the Painted Rocksnail, as the species was historically more restricted than previously thought. Recent surveys by the authors only found the species in small stretches of the Coosa River, Choccolocco Creek, Buxahatchee Creek, and Ohatchee Creek.

In conclusion, the authors note the importance of natural history museums and the importance of studying snails in the southeastern United States.

“Without the shells stored in natural history museums we would have never been able to determine that the supposed historical range of the Painted Rocksnail was incorrect, which could have resulted in less effective conservation efforts for an animal that is very important to the health of rivers in Alabama,” they say.

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Original Source:

Whelan NV, Johnson PD, Garner JT, Strong EE (2017) On the identity of Leptoxis taeniata – a misapplied name for the threatened Painted Rocksnail (Cerithioidea, Pleuroceridae). ZooKeys697: 21-36. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.697.14060

Lion conservation requires effective international cooperation

Lions belong to the world’s most charismatic megafauna. However, lion numbers and range have declined alarmingly over the last two decades.

“To turn the tide, international cooperation is crucial,” says a team of lawyers, conservation biologists and social scientists.

In their recently published review article in the journal Nature Conservation, they assess the current and potential future role of international treaties regarding lion conservation.

To conduct this study, international wildlife lawyers Arie Trouwborst and Melissa Lewis from Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands teamed up with lion experts David Macdonald, Amy Dickman and other scientists from the University of Oxford‘s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) – the research group that made Cecil the lion famous.

Their analysis clearly shows the importance of various global and regional treaties for lion conservation.

For instance, dozens of important lion areas have received international protection under treaties like the World Heritage Convention and the Ramsar Wetlands Convention, whereas trade in lion bones and hunting trophies is regulated through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

“There is still much room for improvement in the way the international commitments of lion range states are applied on the ground,” the review notes.

However, the authors conclude that it is worthwhile to invest in such improvements, and stress the importance of strategies involving the local people who live alongside lions. The review offers many concrete recommendations for optimising the contributions of the various treaties to lion conservation.

A particularly important recommendation is to formally list lions under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS). A proposal to list lions is on the agenda of the next intergovernmental summit of the parties to the CMS in October this year.

As lead author Arie Trouwborst explains:

“Listing the lion would raise the profile of this iconic species, and would moreover enable the CMS to provide a framework for coordinating and assisting conservation efforts in the 25 countries where lions still occur in the wild.”

According to David Macdonald, Director of WildCRU:

“Biology is necessary, but not sufficient, to inform and deliver wildlife conservation. Our approach at the WildCRU in Oxford is holistic – this new partnership with international lawyers is a symbol of our determination to embrace knowledge from every discipline, leaving no stone unturned in our quest to conserve these iconic animals.”

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Original source:

Trouwborst A, Lewis M, Burnham D, Dickman A, Hinks A, Hodgetts T, Macdonald E, Macdonald D (2017) International law and lions (Panthera leo): understanding and improving the contribution of wildlife treaties to the conservation and sustainable use of an iconic carnivore. Nature Conservation 21: 83-128. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.21.13690

Rare footage of a new clearwing moth species from Malaysia reveals its behavior

Unique footage of a new species of clearwing moth has been recorded in a primeval rainforest in Peninsular Malaysia revealing the behaviour of this elusive insect.

Clearwing moths, which are day-flying insects belonging to the Sesiidae family, imitate bees and wasps. Apart from the common species considered as agricultural pests, these moths are known mainly from old museum specimens, stored on pins in forgotten drawers. In the wild, they are elusive creatures, rarely spotted and, hence, poorly studied.

Marta Skowron Volponi from the University of Gdansk, Poland, a PhD student specialising in entomology, teamed up with nature filmmaker and photographer Paolo Volponi, associated with the ClearWing Foundation for Biodiversity, to find these intriguing insects. The results of their studies were recently published in ZooKeys.

In their search for clearwing moths, they went deep into the virgin Malaysian jungle, where elephants, tigers, tapirs and other charismatic Southeast Asian animals roam, while dealing with the intense heat, humidity and countless blood-suckers.

In the end, however, their effort was worth it: on a bank of a crystal clear river, during the hottest hours of the day, the researchers discovered a new species of clearwing moth displaying behaviour known as mud-puddling.

“Mud-puddling is the process of sucking-up liquids in order to gain essential nutrients, such as salt or proteins”, explains Marta. “It has only recently been observed in clearwing moths and, similarly as in other Lepidopterans, it seems to be restricted to males”.

The newly discovered species was named Pyrophleps ellawi in honour of Marta and Paolo’s Malaysian friend EL Law who supported the team during their expeditions and who has a deep affinity for nature.

Curiously, rather than resembling a butterfly’s relative, the new moth looks like an insect from a whole different order. It mimics potter wasps.

“It has a slender body, long legs and transparent wings with a blue sheen in sunlight, similarly to some species of potter wasps”, says Marta.

Furthermore, while observing the moth in the wild, the authors noticed that it does not only look like a wasp – it also flies like one.

“There were potter wasps in the same area. In flight, the two insects were impossible to distinguish, they would always confuse us!”

The new species seems to be quite rare. During the authors’ three expeditions to Malaysia, they managed to see only eight individuals with each of them seen on a different day.

“So there we were: on our knees on a sandy beach, in the middle of the jungle, trying to film the 1.5 cm moth”, Marta recalls. “We didn’t have much time: a single clearwing would come around 2:00 PM and stay for several minutes only. We knew that once it flew away, we would not get another shot”.

“Could it be that their rarity is the reason why the behaviour of clearwing moths is practically unknown and why there are still new species waiting to be discovered?” the researchers wonder.

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Original source:

Skowron Volponi MA, Volponi P (2017) A new species of wasp-mimicking clearwing moth from Peninsular Malaysia with DNA barcode and behavioural notes (Lepidoptera, Sesiidae). ZooKeys692: 129-139. Doi: 10.3897/zookeys.692.13587

An overlooked and rare new gall-inducing micromoth from Brazil

A new species and genus (Cecidonius pampeanus) of primitive monotrysian micromoth from the Brazilian Pampa biome has been recently discovered to induce scarcely noticeable galls under the swollen stems of the Uruguayan pepper tree.

Gall-inducing moths lay their eggs in the tree bark, where the larvae form the characteristic roundish swellings as they grow larger. In their turn, these galls attract various parasitoids and inquiline wasps – wasps that have lost the ability to form galls for their own eggs – and so they take advantage of the galls of other species, while under development. The inquilines modify the galls into larger ones which subsequently last longer and attract even more attention. As a result, even though abundant as young, the new moth’s larvae rarely survive and their density in the field later in life is low.

While free-living gall moths are generally rare, the studied genus pupates on the ground, resulting in its being overlooked for over a century. Furthermore, the galls fall to the ground where the last instar larvae undergo a period of suspended development for months. They stay motionless within their gall until pupation and emerge as adults in the next growing season.

After all this time, this species has finally been recognised in the open access journal ZooKeys by an international research team, led by Dr. Gilson Moreira, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. In their paper, the scientists describe the gall, immature stages and adults of the moth. They also provide information on its natural history in conjunction with one of the associated parasitoid and inquiline wasps.

“It took several years to obtain a small number of C. pampeanus pupae and adults to use for the description,” say the authors.

“The existence of these galls has been known for more than a century. However, biologists believed they are induced by the inquiline wasps,” they explain. “Consequently, it turned out that the wasps do not induce galls, but rather modify them early in development into large and colourful, visually appealing galls.”

The study also provides strong evidence that the species is under threat of extinction and the scientists suggest that protective measures need to be taken to conserve it.

In fact, they found strikingly low levels of gene flow amongst populations of C. pampeanus. In their paper, the team also emphasises that, in case of extinction of the primary gall inducer, a whole insect community associated with their galls will follow. This could happen even before science becomes familiar with all of these species.

Open savannahs of southern Brazil, where populations of the new moth’s host plant (the Uruguayan pepper tree) are found, have been suffering from anthropic impact for decades, mostly caused by agriculture and cattle ranching.

Curiously, the present study is the first in Brazil to suggest that a micromoth and its associated fauna should be subjected to conservation measures.

Extant populations of the new species are distant and isolated from each other, being restricted to a small geographic area in the northeast Southern Brazilian “Campos” (= Pampean savannah), a neglected biome from a nature preservation perspective. Most of the moths have retreated to higher elevations, such as hilltops and hill slopes interspersed with small bushes, where they get shelter from the anthropic influence.

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Original source:

Moreira GRP, Eltz RP, Pase RB, Silva GT, Bordignon SAL, Mey W, Gonçalves GL (2017) Cecidonius pampeanus, gen. et sp. n.: an overlooked and rare, new gall-inducing micromoth associated with Schinus in southern Brazil (Lepidoptera, Cecidosidae). ZooKeys 695: 37-74. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.695.13320

Nature Conservation Special: Guidelines for the monitoring of beetles protected in Europe

In a follow-up to a recent special issue, 8 research articles outline a set of verified guidelines for the monitoring of 5 saproxylic beetle species listed in the Habitats Directive

In a set of eight research publications, scientists tested various methods for the monitoring of five European saproxylic (i.e. dependent on dead wood) beetle species protected by the Habitats Directive. The aim of their work was to test and propose a standard method for each species. A key role in this conservation initiative was played by citizen scientists who made it possible for sufficient data to be collected within a significantly shorter time frame.

The special issue “Guidelines for the monitoring of the saproxylic beetles protected in Europe” is the second in succession published in the open access journal Nature Conservation. Both are produced within the framework of the European Union’s LIFE Programme Project “Monitoring of insects with public participation” (LIFE11 NAT/IT/000252 MIPP) and were presented at the European Workshop held in Mantova in May 2017. Colonel Franco Mason, project manager of the MIPP project, notes that the workshop was aimed primarily at monitoring of saproxylic beetles.

While the first article collection focused on reporting recent findings derived from monitoring surveys across the European Union, the papers in the latest issue are devoted to testing various methods for the monitoring of five selected species of protected beetles, in order to determine the most efficient methods and, subsequently, to propose them as standard methods.

Curiously, the public participation in the project was not limited to ecology and entomology semi-experts and aficionados. The team specifically targeted children when recruiting volunteers. One of the dissemination activities of the MIPP project was the “MIPP-iacciono gli insetti” (translated to “I like insects” from Italian), where 3000 students from primary to high school undertook 60 activities per year in order to learn how to locate and identify the target insects.

“Participation by children in environmental education programmes seems to have a great impact on their attitude and behaviour,” notes Giuseppe Carpaneto, Roma Tre University and his co-authors in their introductory article.

“Some studies have shown that children who participate in such programmes are more concerned about nature, want to learn more about environmental issues and are more prone to follow pro-environmental behaviour (e.g. waste recycling) than children who did not participate”.

In another article, included in the special issue, Fabio Mosconi of the Italian Agricultural Research Council and Sapienza University of Rome and his co-authors tested whether a specially trained Golden Retriever could locate the threatened hermit beetle faster and more efficiently than scientists using the standard “wood mould sampling” method.

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Additional information:

About the Life project MIPP

The main objective of the project MIPP is to develop and test methods for the monitoring of five beetle species listed in Annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive (Osmoderma eremita, Lucanus cervus, Cerambyx cerdo, Rosalia alpina, Morimus funereus).