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New technologies are changing the way we collect biodiversity data. Data that once required taking expensive, bulky and fragile equipment on field trips can now be collected on cheap, compact and robust devices. In a recent paper in the Biodiversity Data Journal the construction of an environmental data-logger using the Arduino platform is described. It is hoped that this work will encourage the adoption of new data collection technologies by biodiversity scientists and foster new collaborations with both electronics hobbyists and electronics engineers who have an interest in biodiversity.

The Arduino platform (a microcontroller device designed to make interactive prototypes at low cost) provides a low-cost and customizable alternative to expensive proprietary data loggers and sensors. We increasingly rely on citizen scientists to collect the data at the core of our science, in particular the network of biological recorders who provide much of our knowledge on the changing distribution of species. Many of these people are interested in using technology to maximize the value of the data they collect, but don’t have the financial or technological resources to make full use of the opportunities technology provides. Projects such as the one described here will enable wider access to the latest technologies.

In recent years biodiversity science has made use of increasingly large datasets, from the global collection of specimen and observation data in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility(GBIF) to monitoring changes in habitat and vegetation using data from satellites. Technologies such as those described here will add value to traditional biodiversity studies, and increase their use in aiding us to understand species and how their interact with their environment.

“The introduction of easy-to-use micro-controller devices such as the Arduino brought working with digital electronics to a broader audience.” comments the author Ed Baker. “There is great potential for the biodiversity community if we collaborate with knowledgeable ”hackers” and ”makers” as citizen engineers in the same way we interact with knowledgeable amateur natural historians as citizen scientists.”

Original Source:

Baker E (2014) Open source data logger for low-cost environmental monitoring. Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e1059. DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e1059

Biologists working in the Andes mountains of Ecuador have described a new plant species, a wild relative of black pepper, that is in itself a mini biodiversity hotspot. The new species, Piper kelleyi, is the sole home of an estimated 40-50 insect species, most of which are entirely dependent on this plant species for survival. This discovery is part of a larger project which focuses on the influence of plant-produced chemical compounds on biodiversity. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

The chemical compounds produced by plants are source of plants’ unique flavors, aromas, and colors. What’s less appreciated is that these compounds often have important medicinal or toxic properties, and are the plant’s natural way to resist pesky herbivores. Black pepper and its wild relatives produce a wide diversity of chemical compounds, many of which are known to be biologically active (in fact, several compounds from the new species are currently under evaluation, and show promise as possible anti-cancer drugs). These compounds are known to deter most herbivores, but a certain group of caterpillars has been able to overcome their toxicity and, as a result, most species of the genus feed only on a single species of wild black pepper. To make matters more complex, each of these caterpillars typically has one to several predatory wasp and/or fly species that attack only that caterpillar species.

Our team of scientists has made nearly 30,000 observations of over 100 black pepper relatives over 20+ years, and the new plant species described here supports the largest number of specialized caterpillar and predator species recorded for species in the black pepper family to date. Many of these insect species were discovered as a result of our investigations and are new to science (many remain unnamed). Piper kelleyi supports an estimated 40-50 species of specialized herbivores and predators, which makes this newly described plant species, in itself, a veritable biodiversity hotspot. Are there any vertebrate species that depend on this plant? Nobody knows, but relatives of black pepper are often important food sources for vertebrates, such as bats and birds, that specialize on their fruits or feed on associated insects.

This finding has conservation implications as well. The insect species that make up this unusually large assemblage are, for the most part, entirely dependent on the new plant species and, if the plant were to disappear, all of its associated animal species would too.

Evidence suggests that the unique compounds produced by a plant species, or the unique combination of these compounds, help drive the evolution of biological diversity, not only among the herbivores that feed directly on the plants, but among higher trophic levels as well. The discovery of our new species, along with its large cohort of dependent insects, lends considerable support to the hypothesis that a suite of new species of herbivores and predators of those herbivores evolves in response to the evolution of novel plant-produced chemical compounds.

Original source:

Tepe EJ, Rodríguez-Castañeda G, Glassmire AE, Dyer LA (2014) Piper kelleyi, a hotspot of ecological interactions and a new species from Ecuador and Peru. PhytoKeys 34: 19-32. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.34.6376

Scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ present CLIMBER: Climatic niche characteristics of the butterflies in Europe –a unique dataset on the climatic niche characteristics of 397 European butterflies representing impressive 91% of the European species. The information provided in this dataset is of great relevance for basic and applied ecology and provides a combination of high quality standards and open access, data ready to use for a broad range of applications. The data paper describing the characteristics of the compilation was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Global change seriously threatens biodiversity at all organisational levels ranging from properties of single species, through communities and species assemblages to whole ecosystems including the provision of ecosystem services for human well-being. Detailed information on species’ ecological niche characteristics is indispensable for a better understanding of the relationship between the occurrence and performance of wild species and their environment and, moreover, for an improved assessment of the impacts of global change.

Knowledge on species characteristics such as habitat requirements is already available in the ecological literature for butterflies, but information about their climatic requirements is still lacking. The new CLIMBER dataset attempts to fill this gap by providing unique information on the climatic niche characteristics of 397 European butterflies. These characteristics are obtained by combining detailed information on butterfly distributions in Europe, which also led to the ”Distribution Atlas of European Butterflies” (Kudrna 2002), the ”Climatic Risk Atlas of European Butterflies” (Settele et al. 2008) and the ”Distribution Atlas of Butterflies in Europe” (Kudrna et al. 2011).

The application potential of this database ranges from theoretical aspects such as assessments of past niche evolution or analyses of trait interdependencies to the very applied aspects of measuring, monitoring and projecting historical, ongoing and potential future responses to climate change using butterflies as an indicator. Good knowledge of the ecological characteristics relevant for the reaction of species and communities to particular drivers of global change is needed, which can then be utilised as powerful indicators for conservation planning and action.

“By combining a comprehensive database on the distribution of European butterflies with publicly available climatic data in combination with a constantly high level of quality control at crucial steps of the data generation, CLIMBER represents a unique and ready-to-use dataset for a broad variety of potential applications.” comments Dr. Oliver Schweiger, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ.

“By providing public access to this dataset, we hope to contribute to improvements of the scientific understanding of how climate change affects species and communities and to improve monitoring and conservation actions for climate change mitigation.” he adds on the choice of open access for the dataset.

Original Source:

Schweiger O, Harpke A, Wiemers M, Settele J (2013) CLIMBER: Climatic niche characteristics of the butterflies in Europe. ZooKeys 367: 65-84. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.367.6185. Resource ID: GBIF key: http://www.gbif.org/dataset/e2bcea8c-dfea-475e-a4ae-af282b4ea1c5

 

Additional information:

The research was supported by European Commission Framework Programme (FP) 6 via the Integrated Project ALARM (GOCE-CT-2003-506675; Settele et al. 2005) and FP 7 via the Integrated Project SCALES (grant 226 852; Henle et al. 2010) and the Collaborative Project STEP (grant 244090 – STEP – CP – FP; Potts et al. 2011) and the FP6BiodivERsA Eranet project CLIMIT (funded by DLR-BMBF (Germany), NERC and DEFRA (UK), ANR (France), Formas (Sweden) and Swedish EPA (Sweden)

 

Contact:

Oliver Schweiger
Email: oliver.schweiger@ufz.de

Martin Wiemers
Email: martin.wiemers@ufz.de

Josef Settele
Email: josef.settele@ufz.de

The state of Qatar occupies a small peninsula of 11,500 km2 within the Arabian Peninsula. Both Qatar’s population and economy have increased rapidly during the last decades, thus putting a strong pressure on native species. The commitment of the Qatari government towards sustainable development has triggered a variety of studies of its dwindling biodiversity.

A recent lizard inventory project has confirmed the occurrence of 21 lizard species, two of them being the first records to the fauna of Qatar, the Persian leaf-toed gecko and the Gulf sand gecko. The Qatari lizards belong to eight different families, but the most abundant family is Gekkonidae with nine species of nocturnal Geckos.

The authors of this study have found that while some lizard species are widespread, others are only present in few locations. In fact, lizard species richness varied between one and eleven species per grid square of 10×10 km. The most abundant lizard species are associated with artificial habitats made by human activities, and some of these are probably introduced. Other lizard species appear to be rare and would require urgent conservation measures. Despite the small size and flat relief of the country, some areas are not easily accessible and were under sampled. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The authors believe that additional lizard species might be present. “Additional efforts and funds are needed for future field surveys including all protected areas and private farms in order to complete the inventory of lizards of Qatar.”, explains one of the authors Dr. Cogalniceanu. “The complete distribution database will be valuable to identify and plan adequate conservation measures for lizards. The data will also allow for species distribution modelling and predicting shifts in species range under different climate change scenarios and human impact factors.”

This study was possible thanks to the efforts and close collaboration of a large international team from Qatar (Ministry of Environment, Qatar Foundation and Qatar University) and several European institutions from Spain (University of Zaragoza, Aranzadi Society of Sciences, Forest Sciences Centre of Catalonia-CTFC, Spanish National Research Council-CSIC) and Romania (University Ovidius Constanţa).

Original Source:

Cogălniceanu D, Castilla AM, Valdeón A, Gosá A, Al-Jaidah N, Alkuwary A, Saifelnasr EOH, Mas-Peinado P, Richer R, Al-Hemaidi AAM (2014) A preliminary report on the distribution of lizards in Qatar. ZooKeys 373: 67. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.373.5994

 

Funding:

Funding for this study include the Qatar Foundation (QEERI) Project #QF.00.307.722011.QE11, and funds from the Qatar Ministry of Environment and Qatar Petroleum, and from the Department of Education, Government of Navarra (Spain).

 

Contact person:

Dr Essam OH Saifelnasr
Qatar Biodiversity Expert
Ministry of Environment (MOE)
E-mail: esnasr@moe.gov.qa
Phone, office 00974 44261208
Fax 00974 44763676

 

Some introduced (i.e. non-native) plants become abundant, threaten species richness and the well-functioning of ecosystems, the economy, or health (plant invasion). Environmental policies that attempt to restrict the expansion of non-native species are based on a consensus among scientific experts that invasions are a serious environmental problem. An example of a problematic non-native species in many parts of the world is Fallopia japonica, the Japanese knotweed that negatively affects river ecosystems.

A consensus among experts on the severity of plant invasions seems evident in many scientific and outreach publications. However, instead of consensus, a new study by an interdisciplinary research team at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) of psychologists and plant biologists found a wide range of different opinions among scientific experts about how to describe invasive plant species, and how severe their effects on the environment are. The study is published in the latest issue of the open access journal NeoBiota.

The researchers conducted 26 face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of German-speaking scientists working on plant invasions, or more generally on environmental change, in Europe. The interviews revealed that individual understandings of scientific concepts, uncertainties, and value-based attitudes towards invasive plants and their management diverged widely among these experts.

“Particularly, ambiguous definitions of the terms non-native and invasive (two key notions in invasion science) are a strong source of misunderstandings among scientists.” said lead author Franziska Humair, a doctoral student at ETH Zurich. Some of the study participants used a biological definition to discriminate native from non-native species (“species from a different biogeographic region”), while others referred to culture (“species not familiar to local people”). “Based on each definition, a different set of species is considered non-native in a particular country.” Ms Humair said. Equally, different experts considered different impacts by invasive species on ecosystems and their functioning for humans (ecosystem services) to be relevant. “These ambiguous interpretations of key notions and divergent assessments of impacts may then lead to conflicting risk assessments and pronounced misunderstandings, eventually impeding concerted management action.” concluded Ms Humair.

The authors propose that invasive species management would strongly profit from broader participation of different expert groups and stakeholders in invasive species research and management, making scientific uncertainties as well as diverging opinions towards management goals transparent.

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Original source:

Humair F, Edwards PJ, Siegrist M, Kueffer C (2014) Understanding misunderstandings in invasion science: why experts don’t agree on common concepts and risk assessments. NeoBiota 20: 1. doi: 10.3897/NeoBiota.20.6043

Saccharum spontaneum is an invasive grass that has spread extensively in disturbed areas throughout the Panama Canal watershed, where it has created a fire hazard and inhibited reforestation efforts. The weed originally believed to be originally from India, is perfectly adapted to the conditions in Panama and produces excessive amounts of biomass during the wet season, which impedes reforestation efforts. A new study published in the open access journal NeoBiota proposes an effective method for controlling the growth, based on analysis of its reproductive biology.

Currently physical removal of aboveground biomass is the primary means of controlling the weed, which is largely ineffective and does little to inhibit spread of the species. This is due to the insufficient knowledge about reproduction of the species and this is where science comes to the rescue.

A team of scientists from Australia and Panama provide a detailed examination of a series of studies looking at some of the basic reproductive mechanisms and strategies utilised by S. spontaneum to provide information to support development of better targeted management strategies.

It turns out that S. spontaneum has a very good survival toolkit being able to reproduce through buds on stems that had been dried for up to six weeks. Separate experiments showed that even leftover stem fragments could sprout when left on the surface or buried shallowly and that larger pieces sprouted more readily than smaller pieces.

The study shows that the through better knowledge the panacea of a big problem can turn out to be very simple. A good timing of management actions to prevent flowering would significantly reduce the seed load into the environment and help to prevent spread to new sites. Similarly simple but effective would be cutting stems into smaller pieces allowing them to dry out and reduce the ability of buds to sprout.

Original Source:

Bonnett GD, Kushner JNS, Saltonstall K (2014) The reproductive biology of Saccharum spontaneum L.: implications for management of this invasive weed in Panama. NeoBiota 20: 61. doi: 10.3897/neobiota.20.6163

A team of scientists from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and the University of California at Davis describe ten new species of Temnothorax ants, doubling the number of species of this genus in California. What makes this discovery even more special is that each described specimen is linked to the AntWeb database by a unique identifier. Publishing this way makes it easier to harvest the data by other on-line resources and repositories.

The era of electronic publishing in taxonomy has greatly facilitated the accessibility of specimen data. ZooKeys, where the new study is published, has been long spearheading the goal of wide and rapid dissemination of taxonomic information and a new publication in this journal is further taking the advantage of electronic media.

As is customary in taxonomic descriptions, the authors are providing a list of material examined for each species. Each of the specimen records is marked by a unique specimen identifier, a number that links to a record page in the AntWeb database. This data is also supplied as a supplementary text file, making it easy for the readers to access, download, and analyze these records. The presence of this information in an external database allows harvesting by other on-line resources, such as Encyclopedia of Life, Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Species-ID and ZooBank.

AntWeb is an online ant database that focuses on specimen level data and images linked to specimens. In addition, contributors can submit natural history information and field images that are linked directly to taxonomic names. Distribution maps and field guides are generated automatically. All data in AntWeb are downloadable by users.

“We include 20 species known from California in our study but at present, there are about 60 species (including those described below) of Temnothorax known from North America and more than 350 species worldwide so our study is of somewhat limited scope.”, explain the authors. “Nevertheless, we believe that by officially describing these forms and giving a new illustrated key, we are providing a useful resource for myrmecologists working in western North America.”

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Original Source:

Snelling RR, Borowiec ML, Prebus MM (2014) Studies on California ants: a review of the genus Temnothorax (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). ZooKeys 372: 27. doi:10.3897/zookeys.372.6039

Ecosystem functioning, or the role which organisms play in an ecosystem, is becoming increasingly important in marine ecological and conservation. To facilitate such studies an international team of scientists lead by S. Faulwetter from the Hellenic Centrefor Marine Research(HMRC) present the Polytraits database that aims to provide re-usable, and accessible data on marine bristle worms. The paper describing the new database was published in the innovative Biodiversity Data Journal, a pioneer in the publication of integrated biological data.

Benthic organisms participate in a number of biological processes in world water basins. Their functional diversity is an important community property demonstrating the role organisms have in the ecosystem and helping to understand how the community reacts to environmental changes. Polychaetes, or bristle worms, are marine worms famous for their peculiar shapes and often vivid coloration. More than 10,000 species are described in the class worldwide, most of which living in the shelf zone of the seas and oceans, burrowing in the sediment or swimming among the plankton.

At present, the Polytraits database contains almost 20,000 records on morphological, behavioural and reproductive characteristics of more than 1,000 species, all referenced by literature sources. All data on these engaging organisms can be freely accessed through the project website in different ways and formats, both human-readable and machine-readable. The new database presents a rich and easy to use collection, which cover morphological, reproductive and behavioural characteristics of polychaetes, as well as information on environmental preferences in an attempt to facilitate ecological research and conservation studies.

The researchers also provide a leading-edge approach to accessing, integrating and re-using the data. Through programming interfaces, the life-cycle information is automatically integrated into the Polychaetes Scratchpads, together with other data on polychaetes. Scratchpads are easy to use, adaptable, and provide powerful tools for managing biodiversity data. This taxon-centric virtual research environment allows browsing the taxonomic classification and retrieving various kinds of relevant information for each taxon, among which are also the collected biological traits.

Furthermore, the data are also accessible through Encyclopedia of Life’s TraitBank which currently features over 3 million records related to more than 250 attributes for 272,720 taxa, including the Polytraits data. TraitBank serves as a provider for aggregated species trait data. All data uploaded there are archived and integrated with trait information from other sources to address issues of standardization of scientific data. This is the first complex database for marine organisms to be published in such an innovative way and demonstrates yet another example of collaboration between the data publisher Pensoft and Encyclopedia of Life.

 

Original Source:

Faulwetter S, Markantonatou V, Pavloudi C, Papageorgiou N, Keklikoglou K, Chatzinikolaou E, Pafilis E, Pafilis E, Chatzigeorgiou G, Vasileiadou K, Dailianis T, Fanini L, Koulouri P, Arvanitidis C (2014) Polytraits: A database on biological traits of marine polychaetes. Biodiversity Data Journal 2: e1024. DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.2.e1024

 

Additional information:

Polytraits is a database on biological traits of polychaetes (bristle worms, Polychaeta: Annelida). It covers information about morphological, behavioural, reproductive and larval characteristics of polychaete taxa which has been collected from the literature. The project was initially started as an in-house project of the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research.

TraitBank is a searchable, comprehensive, open digital repository for organism traits, measurements, interactions and other facts for all taxa across the tree of life designed and introduced by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). TraitBank features over 3 million records related to more than 250 attributes for 272,720 taxa obtained from more than 25 data sources and its release has just been formally announced.

The Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ) and the associated Pensoft Writing Tool (PWT), launched on 16th of September 2013, offer several innovations – some of them unique – at every stage of the publishing process. The workflow allows for authoring, peer-review and dissemination to take place within the same online, collaborative platform.

 

 

A visit to the Natural History Museum, London, yielded an unexpected surprise for Dr. Joseph Parker, a UK biologist based in New York at Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History.

Among the 22,000 drawers of specimens that comprise the Coleoptera (beetle) collection housed in the Department of Entomology, was a new rove beetle genus collected during the 1990s in Manaus, a region of the Brazilian Amazon. The new genus is described in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The beetles, which measure only 3 mm in length, have a remarkable sexual dimorphism: the male has large eyes with over one hundred eye facets, whereas the female eyes have a paltry 12 facets. The male also has large flight wings, while the female has no wings at all. It’s likely that the male does most of the searching for mates, while the female doesn’t develop large eyes or wings and invests instead in egg production.

The beetles belong to a group of rove beetles called Pselaphinae, a “massive group of tiny beetles, amongst the commonest beetles you can find in rainforest leaf litter” according to Parker, a Pselaphinae specialist. “We know of more than 9,000 species of these beetles—that’s about as many species as there are birds. The big differences are that only about six or seven people worldwide work on these beetles, and unlike birds, many thousands more of these beetles await discovery, and unfortunately almost nothing is known about their ecology.”

Parker, who is also a developmental biologist, named the new genus “Morphogenia” after “morphogens”—a kind of signalling molecule that functions during animal development to control the size, shape and form of organs.

The beetles were found at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project. This vast ecological experiment was set up by the Smithsonian Institution and Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) to investigate how forest fragmentation affects communities of plants and animals.

“With so few people working on groups of organisms like this, it’s hard to know what role they play in nature. The fact there’s so many species, and they’re so abundant, suggests they’re doing something important.” added Parker.

Original source:

Parker J (2014) Morphogenia: a new genus of the Neotropical tribe Jubini (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Pselaphinae) from the Brazilian Amazon. ZooKeys 373: 57–66. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.373.6788

 

Additional Information:

http://www.nature.com/news/forest-ecology-splinters-of-the-amazon-1.12816

A new species of toad was discovered hiding in the leaf litter of the Peruvian Yungas. The word is used widely by the locals to describe ecoregion of montane rainforests, and translates as “warm valley” in English. The new species Rhinella yunga was baptized after its habitat preference. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Like many other toads of the family Bufonidae the new species Rhinella yunga has a cryptic body coloration resembling the decaying leaves in the forest floor (“dead-leaf pattern”), which is in combination with expanded cranial crests and bony protrusions cleverly securing perfect camouflage. The different colors and shapes within the same species group however make the traditional morphological methods of taxonomic research hard to use to identify the real species diversity within the family. Nevertheless, Rhinela yunga is distinct from all related species in absence of a tympanic membrane, a round membranous part of hearing organ being normally visible on both sides of a toad’s head.

“It appears that large number of still unnamed cryptic species remains hidden under some nominal species of the Rhinella margaritifera species group.”, explains Dr Jiří Moravec, National Museum Prague, Czech Republic.

Among the other interesting characteristics of the true toads from the family Bufonidae are a typical warty, robust body and a pair of large poison parotoid glands on the back of their heads. The poison is excreted by the toads when stressed as a protective mechanism. Some toads, like the cane toad Rhinella marina, are more toxic than others. Male toads also possess a special organ, which after removing of testes becomes an active ovary and the toad, in effect, becomes female.

Original Source:

Moravec J, Lehr E, Cusi JC, Córdova JH, Gvoždík V (2014) A new species of the Rhinella margaritifera species group (Anura, Bufonidae) from the montane forest of the Selva Central, Peru. ZooKeys 371: 35. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.371.6580