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A team of Iranian researchers from the Rice Research Institute of Iran have discovered that Gynnodomorpha permixtana, a well-known moth species from Europe and Asia, has changed its host preferences in order to adjust to Iran’s northern region environmental conditions. The importance of this adaptation for biological control of problematic weeds in rice fields and the biology of the moth on new host plant have been described in the open access journal Nota Lepidopterologica.

The larvae of G. permixtana have been so far reported to feed on the seeds and flowers of plant species such as water-plantain, eyebright, lousewort, bitter root and European yellow-rattle, which are weeds commonly present across Europe and Asia. A new study of the populations in northern Iran, however has revealed a new host – Sagittaria trifolia, commonly known as arrowhead.

This new discovery suggests that climatic and environmental conditions in northern regions of Iran resulted in the choice of a new new host plant, and provides an exciting insight into how adaptation mechanisms work.

Arrowheads are groups of problematic perennial broadleaf weeds that thrive in rice fields and waterways. Favorable climatic condition after rice harvesting results in continued activity and thriving populations throughout the year.

The economic importance of this weed has prompted researchers from the Rice Research Institute of Iran to seek for possible solutions for the management of arrowhead. Their studies have revealed that the larvae of a certain moth species feeding on the fruits and seeds of the problematic weed, can lead to a dramatic decrease of its germination potential.

After this discovery the moth was sent for identification to Dr Leif Aarvik from the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, who have diagnosed the species as the commonly known G. permixtana, which was in this case demonstrating a very uncommon host preference.

‘To our surprise, it looks like this moth chose new host plant in Iran. This moth was reported in 2009 from the northern regions of the country, but its host plant was unknown. Its usual host plants, such as water-plantain, also grow in Iran but peculiarly we couldn’t find its damage symptoms on them. That made this moth host range and biology in Iran rather mysterious at that point, and the recent discovery of arrowheads as its preferred host in the region brings even more peculiarity in the story.’ commented the lead author of the study Atousa Farahpour Haghani a Phd student from, Rice Research Institute of Iran.

‘Many factors can possibly influence host plant choice including food quality and quantity, climatic conditions, synchronization, physiological conditions in both insect and food plant, genetic modifications etc. Some of these factors are not stable and change in different environmental conditions, so an insect can change its choice of food plant on the basis of seeking the most beneficial complex of factors. It seems that in the northern regions of Iran, and luckily for rice crops, the problematic arrowheads present the best choice for G. permixtana.’ added Haghani.

Original source:

Atousa Farahpour Haghani, Bijan Yaghoubi, Farzad Majidi-Shilsar, Naser Davatghar, Leif Aarvik. 2014. The biology ofGynnidomorpha permixtana (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae) onSagittaria trifolia L. (Alismataceae) in paddy fields in Iran. Nota Lepidopterologica. 37(2): 113-121 | DOI 10.3897/nl.37.7708

A new study led by a PhD researcher at The University of Western Australia has revealed that parts of the iconic Galapagos Islands have been overrun by invasive plants from other parts of the world.

“People may be shocked that a place considered so iconic for biodiversity is so overrun with weeds in some areas despite ongoing control effort by National Park rangers, but this is really a global story,” lead author from the UWA School of Plant Biology Mandy Trueman said.

The results published in the open access journal Neobiota confirm that in the humid highland part of Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos National Park, nearly half of the canopy of the vegetation is comprised of non-native trees, shrubs and grasses.

“These invaders compete with native plants for light and water and can change the environment so that both flora and fauna are affected,” Mandy said. “These invasions are one of the factors threatening Galapagos species, many of which occur nowhere else in the world.”

The core outcome from the study is a map and associated database that details the abundance of both introduced and native species over the landscape. This information is of great importance to managers.

The Ministry of Environment through the Galapagos National Park Directorate, within the introduced and invasive species control program has made great efforts to control invasive species and replace them with natives. These efforts have resulted in the recovery of some areas of high ecological value. They annually manage 400 hectares per year for the worst invaders – blackberry, guava and cedrela.

Also endemic plants propagated in the nursery of the Galapagos National Park are used by park rangers for reforestation. The Galapagos National Park Directorate has also initiated studies into potential biological control agents for blackberry, which is considered the worst invader.

Heinke Jäger, who is based in Galapagos with the Charles Darwin Foundation, explained the importance of knowing where different plant invasions have occurred so that decisions can be made about how to manage them.

“The reality is that humans take plants to new places and that can change the nature of those places forever. Islands are particularly susceptible to these changes,” Heinke said. “Eventually some native species will lose out against the non-native invaders. This is a reality that conservation managers in many parts of the world need to deal with.”

“It was a real privilege to spend all that time walking in the highlands in the company of giant tortoises, getting to know the Galapagos plants,” Mandy said. “There are still a lot of native species present, and I hope this study can help managers decide where to take action to protect our precious native flora and fauna.”

Original Source:

Trueman M, Standish R, Orellana D, Cabrera W (2014) Mapping the extent and spread of multiple plant invasions can help prioritise management in Galapagos National Park. NeoBiota 23: 1-16. doi: 10.3897/neobiota.23.7800

 

Contact:

Mandy Trueman
(UWA School of Plant Biology – now based in Darwin)
Tel: (+61 4) 13 519471
Email: truemandy@gmail.com

Heinke Jäger
(Galapagos, Ecuador)
Tel: (+593) 5 2526146 or 2527013 Ext. 152

 

The week-long discussions and decisions of the Nomenclature Section of the XVIII International Botanical Congress took place in Melbourne, Australia in July 2011. This meeting is held every six years and it is where the world’s premier experts on the rules for naming algae, fungi and plants get together to debate and update the rule book for naming the organisms they study. This is the primary product of the meeting, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, which was published in 2012. The other important product is the official report for the historical record, which has just been published as an open-access forum paper in PhytoKeys.

Several significant decisions were made at this meeting, most visibly the change of the title of the rules of nomenclature from the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature – which implies it applies only to plants – to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants – which accurately reflects its scope. This change had been particularly desired by mycologists, the scientists who study fungi.

There were other major changes, foremost among them the possibility to publish new names of algae, fungi, and plants in electronic form only. This means that printed copies, which had previously been mandatory, are no longer required. Another break with tradition was to allow English to be used as an alternative to Latin when publishing formal descriptions of organisms new to science. Previously only Latin could be used.

Co-author Nicholas Turland said “Permitting electronic-only publication was arguably the most important decision made in Melbourne, bringing taxonomy into the 21st century and the electronic age. As for Latin, it has become increasingly difficult to use and is often regarded as an irrelevant anachronism by modern scientists. The meeting clearly wanted an alternative.”

The report was co-authored by Christina Flann, Species 2000, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands; Nicholas J. Turland, Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Germany; and Anna M. Monro, Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, Canberra, Australia. Production of the report was supported by funds from the International Association for Plant taxonomy (IAPT; http://www.iapt-taxon.org/index_layer.php), while its publication as an open-access forum paper was sponsored by Pensoft.

The meeting in Melbourne was well attended, especially in view of the distances many people had to travel. There were 204 delegates representing 56 countries. The geographical composition was uneven with a predictably high number from Australia (about one-third) and about as many from other Anglophone countries.

Co-author Christina Flann said “The much lower African, Asian, and Central and South American presence is far from ideal. These inequalities have deep historical roots and are compounded by uneven access to funding to attend the meeting.” She went on to note “On this occasion there was a strong female presence in leadership positions, despite the ratio of delegates still being skewed toward the male side; about one-third were women. Dr. Sandra Knapp, from the Natural History Museum, London, did an exemplary job in the role of President of the meeting.”

Original Source:

Flann C, Turland N, M. Monro A (2014) Report on botanical nomenclature—Melbourne 2011 XVIII International Botanical Congress, Melbourne: Nomenclature Section, 18-22 July 2011. PhytoKeys 41: 1-289. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.41.8398

At the stroke of a pen a New Zealand endemic tree has for the last 31 years been incorrectly regarded the same as a group of ‘weedy’ Australian shrubs and small trees. A New Zealand botanist has completed a 15-year study to reveal some surprises and discover astonishing cryptic diversity behind what was long considered a single tree species. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

Known to botanists as Kunzea ericoides, this species was one of the many discoveries made in the north-western South Island of New Zealand by Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville during the first voyage of the Astrolabe (1826-1829).

Initially described by French Professor of botany Achille Richard as Leptospermum ericoides, this species and the allied New Zealand endemic Leptospermum sinclairii were merged in 1983 with three other Australian species under the oldest available name (L. ericoides) as a new combination in the related genus Kunzea.

The saying that ‘bad taxonomy kills’ could not be more true, as the decision to merge the Australian and New Zealand species into the one shared species –Kunzea ericoides – resulted in absolute mayhem as a range of important New Zealand trees and shrubs were now regarded as identical to their distant Australian relatives all of which are serious agricultural pests known there as Burgan.

The present study draws on data obtained from experimental hybridisations, cytological investigations, modern molecular analyses and ecological studies published elsewhere by the author of this revision Dr Peter J. de Lange. The PhytoKeys treatment by de Lange concludes that Kunzea ericoides is not shared between Australia and New Zealand; confirms the distinctiveness of the narrow-range rhyolite rock endemic K. sinclairii; and elevates another much misunderstood variety to species rank as K. linearis.

De Lange also recognises further seven species new to science. One, Kunzea robusta is actually the most common Kunzea in New Zealand which despite being first recognised as distinct by the missionary botanist William Colenso in the 1840s, was denied formal recognition for some 170 years until now. Aside from Kunzea robusta de Lange recognises two other common new tree species (K. amathicola and K. serotina), and another four narrow-range endemics – K. salterae, K. tenuicaulis, K. toelkenii, and K. triregensis. One of these species, K. tenuicaulis is known only from active geothermal fields.

Aside from the recognition of 10 endemic New Zealand species from what had been regarded as one in 1983, de Lange also reveals that the indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand the Maori already knew of many of these species, which they recognised by names which referred to their growth habit or wood properties.

It is shown that far from being serious agricultural weeds all the New Zealand Kunzea are important keystone species, either forming their own distinct forest types or helping to heal damaged forest. Furthermore the New Zealand Kunzea species provide an important habitat for a wealth of endemic geckos, orchids and fungi – a far cry indeed from their past much undeserved ‘weed’ status.

“This paper is also a brilliant showcase of how useful is the brand new PhytoKeys publishing platform for the advancement of taxonomy. Once published taxonomic treatments of new species and any nomenclatural changes are automatically available in advanced open access, easy to find, and are stored in various data repositories in reusable format. Such wide availability of data helps for mistakes and misunderstanding regarding previous confusions in the taxonomy of a certain species to be avoided in future,” comments Prof. Lyubomir Penev, managing director of Pensoft Publishers.

Original Source:

de Lange PJ (2014) A revision of the New Zealand Kunzea ericoides (Myrtaceae) complex. PhytoKeys 40: 1-185. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.40.7973

 

Additional Information:

This publication was made possible by the generous support of the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network (http://www.nzpcn.org.nz).

A new species of the Boophis rappiodes group is described from the hidden streams of Ankarafa Forest, northwest of Madagascar. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The new species Boophis ankarafensis is green in colour with bright red speckling across its head and back, but what truly distinguishes this species is a high genetic divergence and different call with a triple click, compared to the usual double.

All individuals were detected from the banks of two streams in Ankarafa Forest. The new species represents the only member of the B. rappiodes group endemic to Madagascar’s western coast, with the majority of other members known from the eastern rainforest belt. Despite its conspicuous call, it has not been detected from other surveys of northwest Madagascar and it is likely to be a local endemic to the peninsula.

The ranges of two other amphibian species also appear restricted to Sahamalaza, and so the area seems to support a high level of endemicity. Although occurring inside a National Park, this species is highly threatened by the continuing decline in the quality and extent of its habitat.

Due to these threats it is proposed that this beautiful new species should be classified as Critically Endangered according to the IUCN Red List criteria.

Original Source:

Penny SG, Andreone F, Crottini A, Holderied MW, Rakotozafy LS, Schwitzer C, Rosa GM (2014) A new species of the Boophis rappiodes group (Anura, Mantellidae) from the Sahamalaza Peninsula, northwest Madagascar, with acoustic monitoring of its nocturnal calling activity. ZooKeys 435: 111-132. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.435.7383

The hard corals primarily responsible for the construction of coral reefs around the world have attracted the attention of taxonomists for hundreds of years. Despite the important role such corals play in building what are arguably the world’s most diverse ecosystems, coral reefs in some parts of the world still hold surprises for modern scientists.

An international team of scientists has recently described a new hard coral species, Pachyseris inattesa, from the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. The study, led by the University of Milano-Biccocain collaboration with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), highlights the opportunities for scientific discovery in a region that has historically been difficult to access.

Corals in the genus Pachyseris are reef dwellers often referred to as “elephant skin corals” or “corduroy corals” due to their wrinkled appearance. Tullia I Terraneo, the lead author of the paper, explains that the name for the new species was chosen because of the reaction she and Francesca Benzoni, the co-author who collected the species, had when examining a specimen closely. “We were looking at the SEM [scanning electron microscope] images, and realized that we had something completely unexpected.” The word ‘inattesa’ translates from Italian as ‘unforeseen’.

The coral indeed has a superficial resemblance with some common and widespread coral species of the genus Leptoseris and this led others in the past to misidentify it. “After detailed micromorphological and molecular analyses, we can confirm that this is a unique and novel lineage,” Terraneo says. The new species was recorded from different reef habitats along the coast of Saudi Arabia, between 10m-35m depth and to date its distribution seems to be limited to the Red Sea region.

The finding is the latest outcome from the “Biodiversity in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea” project organized by Michael Berumen, co-author of the study and PI of the Reef Ecology Lab at KAUST. This project was initiated in 2012 and has brought numerous scientists and taxonomic experts to the Red Sea from around world, with the overall aim to increase our understanding of the biological diversity present in Saudi Arabian coral reefs. Although the Red Sea played a pivotal role in the early history of scientific works on coral reefs, the region has been understudied in more recent times.

The discovery of Pachyseris inattesa highlights that our knowledge regarding the Red Sea is still far from complete, and that our understanding of hard coral diversity globally is likewise not perfect.

“As far as we can tell, this species is endemic to the Red Sea,” Terraneo said. “Although our current sampling has only identified it in Saudi Arabia, I suspect that further research in other Red Sea countries would reveal a broader range.”

In any case, continued discovery of new species in the Red Sea has been steadily increasing the known endemism of the region. “Findings such as those presented in this paper continue to highlight how special the Red Sea is and provide even more reasons to make sure that conservation efforts in the region preserve these natural treasures, including those that we have yet to discover,” said Berumen.

Original source:

Terraneo TI, Berumen ML, Arrigoni R, Waheed Z, Bouwmeester J, Caragnano A, Stefani F, Benzoni F (2014) Pachyseris inattesa sp. n. (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Scleractinia): a new reef coral species from the Red Sea and its phylogenetic relationships. ZooKeys 433: 1-30. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.433.8036

 

Contact:

Dr. Tullia I Terraneo
Reef Ecology Lab
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Email: tulliaisotta.terraneo@kaust.edu.sa

A new study provides an exciting insight into the Late Cretaceous and the diversity and distribution of the toothless ‘dragon’ pterosaurs from the Azhdarchidae family. The research was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The Azhdarchidan pterosaurs derive their name from the Persian word for dragon – Aždarha. Interestingly, this derived and rather successful group of pterosaurs included some of the largest known flying animals of all times, with a wingspan reaching between 10 and 12 m.

‘Dragon’ pterosaurs had a worldwide distribution once and were the last of their kind to survive on the planet, until some 60 mya. They dominated the skies during the Late Cretaceus and unlike their predecessors, were characteristically toothless.

“This shift in dominance from toothed to toothless pterodactyloids apparently reflects some fundamental changes in Cretaceous ecosystems, which we still poorly understand,” comments the author of the study Dr Alexander Averianov, Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Generally fossil record of pterosaurs is patchy and confined mostly to sedimentary deposits known as Konservat-Lagerstätten where exceptional depositional conditions facilitated preservation of fragile pterosaur bones. Unfortunately, such Lagerstätten are very rare for the Late Cretaceous when most of the evolutionary history of Azhdarchidae took place, which makes these exciting creatures exceptionally hard to study.

“Azhdarchidae currently represent a real nightmare for paleontologists: most taxa are known from few fragmentary bones, which often do not overlap between named taxa, the few articulated skeletons are poorly preserved, and some of the best available material has remained undescribed for forty years.” explains Dr Averianov about the difficulties studying the group.

Despite these difficulties, the number of localities were azhdarchidan pterosaurs were found is impressive and undoubtedly reflect the important role they played in the Cretaceous ecosystems. These flying giants likely inhabited a large variety of environments, but seem to have been abundant near large lakes and rivers and most common in nearshore marine environments.

Original Source:

Averianov A (2014) Review of taxonomy, geographic distribution, and paleoenvironments of Azhdarchidae (Pterosauria) ZooKeys 432: 1-107. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.432.7913

 

An extensive study by Smithsonian scientists presents a synopsis of the carabid beetle tribe Lachnophorini. The research contains a new genus and the remarkable 24 new species added to the tribe. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Beetles from the family Carabidae, commonly known as ground beetles are a large, cosmopolitan group, with more than 40,000 species worldwide, Carabid beetles range in size from 0.6 mm to 90.2 mm and occur in nature in several fractal universes influencing life therein as predators, ectoparasitoids, seed eaters, and even fungal mycelia feeders in a multitude of ways.

Understanding the impact of this beetle family’s importance across a multidimensional landscape in a cascade of fractal universes is our biodiversity challenge for the 21st century for one of insects’ most diverse families.

“For a fairly large and diverse Tribe of Carabidae with markedly interesting body forms and divergent ways of life, the Lachnophorini have all but been largely ignored by carabidologists until now. This new study establishes the groundwork for more refined studies aiming for a better understanding of the diversity of the species and the evolution of the tribe in order to have a finer awareness of the next smaller fractal universe for the Carabidae family, if we are truly to understand it.” explains one of the authors Laura Zamorano, research student at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

This research is the beginning of series of steps towards the provision of taxonomic relationships of carabid beetles. For the near future the path forward to be followed will lead to an attempt, using morphological and molecular attributes to provide a firm basis for firm classification.

Original Source:

Erwin TL, Zamorano LS (2014) A synopsis of the tribe Lachnophorini, with a new genus of Neotropical distribution and a revision of the Neotropical genus Asklepia Liebke, 1938 (Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae). ZooKeys 430: 1-108. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.430.8094

Scales are small insects that feed by sucking plant juices. They can attack nearly any plant and cause serious damage to many agricultural and ornamental plants. While native scales have natural enemies that generally keep their populations in check, invasive species often do not, and for this reason many commercially important scale pests in the United States are species that were accidentally introduced.

In order to facilitate the identification of alien species at U.S. ports-of-entry, scientists of the United States Department of Agriculture and California Department of Food and Agriculture joined efforts and built an online tool for the identification of 194 potentially invasive species from all over the world.

The new website is a comprehensive resource to assist federal and state identifiers to make authoritative identifications of intercepted scale insects. This resource includes, for each species, information on diagnostic characters, distribution, hosts, and important references with line drawings, photos of slide-mounted specimens and of specimens in the field. It also has identification keys, which were built in Lucid, a powerful expert system specifically designed for making identifications of organisms. Information on each species is maintained through links to ScaleNet, a rich relational database on scales that is updated regularly. Details about this tool have been published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

A number of other online tools, including Mobile apps, have been developed by various groups of scientists in cooperation with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Identification Technology Program (ITP), to help identify invasive species. These tools are available at no cost via the ID Tools website.

‘Protecting the borders of large countries such as the United States from invasive scales often requires a very broad knowledge of the taxonomy a group, and detailed knowledge of the literature and collections from the last 250+ years ‘, said Dr. Douglass Miller, the senior author of the paper and a retired scale insect systematist. ‘Currently only a few specialists in the world can identify scale insects based on morphology, and of these, many are retired or approaching retirement. We hope that our tool will facilitate scale insect pest identifications at the borders and will inspire taxonomists to build similar tools for their groups.’

Original source:

Miller DR, Rung A, Parikh G (2014) Scale Insects, edition 2, a tool for the identification of potential pest scales at U.S.A. ports-of-entry (Hemiptera, Sternorrhyncha, Coccoidea). ZooKeys 431: 61-78. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.431.7474

 

Additional Information:

Scale Insects, Edition 2 was made possible, in part, by a cooperative agreement from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) Identification Technology Program (ITP). An agreement through the USDA Center for Plant Health Science and Technology (CPHST) and another infusion of funds from the USDA Invasive Species Liaison and Coordinator funded an earlier version of this tool.

The 5-year EU project Securing the Conservation of biodiversity across Administrative Levels and spatial, temporal, and Ecological Scales (SCALES) has come to an end in July 2014 resulting in a first of its kind description of challenges that arise in protecting biodiversity across different scales.

A wide range of practical methods and recommendations to improve conservation at regional, national and supranational scales are included in a book published as a synthesis of project outcomes. The book “Scaling in Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation” was published in advanced open access via Pensoft Publisher’s Advanced Books platform. This innovative format aimed at accelerating data publishing, mining, sharing and reuse, offers a range of semantic enhancements to book contents, including external sources.

Results are also presented in an easy to use interactive SCALETOOL, specifically developed for the needs of policy and decision-makers. The tool also provides access to a range of biodiversity data and driver maps compiled or created in the project.

Human actions, motivated by social and economic driving forces, generate various pressures on biodiversity, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, land use related disturbance patterns, or species invasions that have an impact on biodiversity.

Each of these factors acts at characteristic scales, and the scales of social and economic demands, of environmental pressures, of biodiversity impacts, of scientific analysis, and of governmental responses do not necessarily match. However, management of the living world will be effective only if we understand how problems and solutions change with scale.

‘The book and the tool are the first of their kind and would be of great help to everyone concerned with the conservation of biodiversity. They provide ideas of how to handle complex issues of scaling in applied and theoretical environmental studies’ says the chief editor Prof. Klaus Henle.

The book aims to bundle the main results of SCALES in a comprehensive manner and present it in a way that is usable not only for scientists but also for people making decisions in administration, management, policy or even business and NGOs; to people who are more interested in the “practical” side of this issue.

Guidelines, practical solutions and special tools are also presented as a special web based portal, SCALETOOL, which puts together scientific outcomes widely spread over the scientific literature.

Outcomes and products of the project are a result from 5-year collaboration between 31 institutions across Europe, Taiwan, and Australia. The book “Scaling in Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation” is edited by Klaus Henle and Josef Settele, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ; Simon Potts, University of Reading; William Kunin, University of Leeds; Yiannis G. Matsinos, University of the Aegean; Jukka Simila, University of Lapland; John Pantis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Vesna Grobelnik, Centre for Cartography of Fauna and Flora, Slovenia; Lyubomir Penev, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Pensoft Publishers.

 

Original Source:

Henle K, Potts S, Kunin W, Matsinos Y, Simila J, Pantis J, Grobelnik V, Penev L, Settele J (Eds) (2014) Scaling in Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation. Advanced Books: e1169. doi: 10.3897/ab.e1169