Pensoft blog - Part 86

Herpetologists describe an elf frog from the elfin forests in southern Vietnam

Deep in the foggy, moss-covered forests of Southern Vietnam, herpetologists uncovered one of the smallest species of horned mountain toads.

The name of the new amphibian (Ophryophryne elfina) derives from European mythology and translates to “elfish eyebrow toad”. Despite being recently discovered, the new species is already considered to be endangered. Having remained hidden in the highlands of Langbian Plateau, it is now described in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The unique species name “elfina” derives from the English word “elf”. In German and Celtic folklore, elves are described as small, supernatural creatures usually dwelling deep in the forests of magical hills. The frogs were named after them primarily because of their small size of around 3 cm, which makes them the smallest known species of the genus – as well as their fascinating appearance – they have small horn-like projections above their eyes.

The unique habitat of the amphibians also inspired their species name. The Elfin mountain toad lives in the highland wet subtropical evergreen forest. There it can only be found on mountain summits higher than 1800 m, or on the slopes of the eastern side of Langbian Plateau, where the rainfall is high because of the sea nearby. Both the rocks and the dwarf curbed trees are covered with a heavy layer of moss, whilst a thick misty fog is constantly lingering amongst the trees. This is why such wet mountain ecosystems are known as elfin forests.

The Elfin mountain toad is one of the three known species in the genus Ophryophryne that inhabit Langbian Plateau. Curiously, all three of them share the same habitat, but can be easily distinguished by their advertisement calls resembling whistling birds.

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Original source:

Poyarkov Jr NA, Duong TV, Orlov NL, Gogoleva SS, Vassilieva AB, Nguyen LT, Nguyen VDH, Nguyen SN, Che J, Mahony S (2017) Molecular, morphological and acoustic assessment of the genus Ophryophryne (Anura, Megophryidae) from Langbian Plateau, southern Vietnam, with description of a new species. ZooKeys 672: 49-120. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.672.10624

What could be the importance of marine and coastal cultural ecosystem services

A detailed scientific literature review published in the open access journal One Ecosystem confirmed that research on marine and coastal cultural ecosystem services is scarce compared to other ecosystem service categories, revealing curious insights and identifying major knowledge gaps.

Available knowledge is not only primarily focused on local and regional sociocultural or economic assessments, but is also mostly coming from Western Europe and North America (USA and Canada). Largely underrepresented, the Global South has only a few studies in South America, Madagascar, and China. Remarkably, no marine and coastal cultural ecosystem services assessments were found in any country of the African continent.

“Such research bias narrows the understanding of social-ecological interactions to a western cultural setting, undermining the role of other worldviews in the understanding of a wide range of interactions between cultural practices and ecosystems worldwide” explain the study authors led by João Garcia Rodrigues.

In addition to this regional bias, the authors have identified clusters of co-occurring drivers of change affecting marine and coastal habitats and their cultural ecosystem services. Damming, land reclamation, tourism and industrial fishing were among the identified drivers of change.

The main knowledge gaps found were the lack of integrated valuation assessments; linking the contribution of cultural ecosystem service benefits to human well-being; assessing more subjective and intangible classes; identifying the role of open-ocean and deep-sea areas in providing these services; and understanding the role of non-natural capital in the co-production of cultural ecosystem services. “Research priorities should be aimed at filling these knowledge gaps” explain the authors.

Overcoming such challenges can result in more balanced decisions that will ultimately contribute to more sustainable interactions between humans and the marine environment. The authors highlight that “cultural ecosystem services are strong motivations for people to embrace sustainability, and hence their inclusion in environmental decision-supporting mechanisms can contribute to a more sustainable future for marine and coastal ecosystems”.

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Original Source:

Garcia Rodrigues J, Conides A, Rivero Rodriguez S, Raicevich S, Pita P, Kleisner K, Pita C, Lopes P, Alonso Roldán V, Ramos S, Klaoudatos D, Outeiro L, Armstrong C, Teneva L, Stefanski S, Böhnke-Henrichs A, Kruse M, Lillebø A, Bennett EM, Belgrano A, Murillas A, Sousa Pinto I, Burkhard B, Villasante S (2017) Marine and Coastal Cultural Ecosystem Services: knowledge gaps and research priorities. One Ecosystem 2: e12290. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.2.e12290

Dig it! Two new shrimp species found in burrows at the bottom of the Gulf of California

Although the Santa María-La Reforma lagoon complex in the Gulf of California is one of the most important areas for shrimp fishery, little is known about the crustacean species that live in the burrows dug in the bottom.

In addition to presenting two species new to science, researchers Drs. José Salgado-Barragán, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Manuel Ayón-Parente and Pilar Zamora-Tavares, both affiliated with Universidad de Guadalajara, México collaborated to build on the knowledge of small shrimp species living there. The study is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Over the span of about two years – between 2013 and 2015, the scientists conducted series of surveys of the bottom-dwelling crustaceans in Bahía Santa María-La Reforma lagoon, located in the southwest Gulf of California. Following a thorough examination of the collected specimens, they recorded five shrimp species of three genera, inhabiting burrows dug into either mud, sand, or sandy-mud. Two of these species turned out to be previously unknown.

One of the new species is named Alpheus margaritae after Dr. Margarita Hermoso-Salazar, a caridean shrimp expert who helped the authors with the identification of the species. This new crustacean lives in the intertidal zone, where it hides in soft mud and gravel of shells and rocks. So far, it is known exclusively from the coastal lagoon Bahía Santa María-La Reforma, Sinaloa, Mexico. Among its characteristic traits are creamy-white colouration splashed with sparse olive green to light brown patches.

The second new species, Leptalpheus melendezensis, is reported to live in the fine sand of the beach. It is named after the Melendez island – the only locality the species has been identified from. Unlike the rest seven members of its genus (Leptalpheus), its major cheliped lacks adhesive disks.

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Original source:

Salgado-Barragán J, Ayón-Parente M, Zamora-Tavares P (2017) New records and description of two new species of carideans shrimps from Bahía Santa María-La Reforma lagoon, Gulf of California, Mexico (Crustacea, Caridea, Alpheidae and Processidae). ZooKeys 671: 131-153. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.671.9081

New butterfly species discovered in Israel for the first time in 109 years

Vladimir Lukhtanov, entomologist and evolutionary biologist at the Zoological Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, made a startling discovery: what people had thought was a population of a common species, turned out to be a whole new organism and, moreover – one with an interesting evolutionary history. This new species is named Acentria’s fritillary (Melitaea acentria) and was found flying right over the slopes of the popular Mount Hermon ski resort in northern Israel. It is described in the open access journal Comparative Cytogenetics.

“To me, it was a surprise that no one had already discovered it,” says Vladimir Lukhtanov.

“Thousands of people had observed and many had even photographed this beautifully coloured butterfly, yet no one recognised it as a separate species. The lepidopterists (experts in butterflies and moths) had been sure that the Hermon samples belonged to the common species called Persian fritillary (Melitaea persea), because of their similar appearance, but nobody made the effort to study their internal anatomy and DNA”.

In 2012, Vladimir Lukhtanov, together with his students, initiated an exhaustive study of Israeli butterflies using an array of modern and traditional research techniques. In 2013, Asya Novikova (until 2012, a master’s student at St. Petersburg University and, from 2013, a PhD student at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem) sampled a few fritillaries from Mt. Hermon.

It was at that time when the researchers noticed that the specimens “didn’t look right” – their genitalia appeared different from those of the typical Persian fritillary. Over the next few years, Lukhtanov and his students studied this population in-depth. They carried out sequencing DNA from the specimens and found that they had a unique molecular signature – very different from the DNA of any other fritillary.

The Acentria’s fritillary seems to be endemic in northern Israel and the neighbouring territories of Syria and Lebanon. Its evolutionary history is likely to prove interesting.

“The species is probably one of a handful of butterflies known to have arisen through hybridisation between two other species in the past,” says Lukhtanov. “This process is known to be common in plants, but scientists have only recently realised it might also be present in butterflies.”

This is the first new butterfly species discovered and described from the territory of Israel in 109 years.

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Original source:

Lukhtanov VA (2017) A new species of Melitaea from Israel, with notes on taxonomy, cytogenetics, phylogeography and interspecific hybridization in the Melitaea persea complex (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae). Comparative Cytogenetics 11(2): 325-357. https://doi.org/10.3897/CompCytogen.v11i2.12370

How bears bulk up ahead of the summer: A study into the Asiatic black bear’s spring diet

Much like gym enthusiasts, every year Asiatic black bears seem to be on the lookout for protein-rich food ahead of the summer, so that they can bulk up on lean muscle mass in place of the fat tissue formed last year prior to hibernation. This was concluded in a study by Dr. Shino Furusaka, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and his team, based on direct observations on bears living across an area of about 60 km2 in Japan. The study is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

In order to determine the bears’ food preferences and habits, the scientists followed a large number of animals in the Ashio area of the Ashio-Nikko Mountains in Japan from April to July in both 2013 and 2014. To avoid unnecessary intrusion, they stayed at a distance of at least 200 metres using video cameras with telescopic lenses to document the sightings. Having documented the plant species the bears consumed, the researchers studied their nutritional content and made conclusions about the nutrients needed for the species after hibernation.

While heavily dependent on food availability, generally the bears were noted to prefer food which is high in protein, but poor in fibre — likely because their stomachs and intestines were unable to efficiently digest the latter. Furthermore, the protein-rich diet ensures that the muscle mass is rebuilt to replace the lost winter fat.

Interestingly, the bears were observed to change their food preferences as spring progressed and that seemed to be linked to the shifts in the nutritional value of the available food.

Starting with their observations at the beginning of April, the scientists did not record any feeding behaviour until the end of the month. As leaf flush was yet to occur, the animals were active and feeding on overwintered grass. However, in early May, the bears began consuming newly emerged leaves, grass and, later in the month, they added flowers to their menu.

A shift in behaviour occurred in the following months. In June and July, the bears were seen to feed mainly on ants, with a small portion of their food intake consisting of grasses, sika deer carcasses and bees. Curiously, when the scientists looked into the nutritional content of the same plants which the animals sought only a few weeks ago, they found out that now they were significantly poorer in protein and richer in fibre.

Another finding showed that the calories in the different items were not related to the choice of food which likely proves that the key factor is none other than the amount of protein, provided that the fibre value is low enough for good digestibility.

Understanding the food preferences and habits of animals, as well as the reasons behind them, is essential for the development and revision of habitat management plans. However, previous knowledge of the feeding behaviour of Asiatic black bears has been based solely on faecal analyses which has not provided sufficient details on which nutritional factors influence the use of particular foods.

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Original source:

Furusaka S, Kozakai C, Nemoto Y, Umemura Y, Naganuma T, Yamazaki K, Koike S (2017) The selection by the Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) of spring plant food items according to their nutritional values. ZooKeys 672: 121-133. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.672.10078

Feeding strategies in competing hummingbird species observed in a small area in Brazil

Being the vertebrates with the highest metabolic rate thanks to their rapid wing flaps, the hummingbirds have evolved various types of feeding behaviour. While the nectar-feeders tend to go for food high in energy, strong competition affects greatly their preferences and behaviour towards either dominance, subordination, a strategy known as trapline and a fourth one named hide-and-wait, conclude the Brazilian scientists Lucas L. Lanna, Cristiano S. de Azevedo, Ricardo M. Claudino, Reisla Oliveira and Yasmine Antonini of Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto. Their conclusions following six months of observations in an Atlantic Forest remnant in southeastern Brazil are published in the open access journal Zoologia.

To test previous assumptions as well as their own hypotheses, the researchers placed artificial bird feeders filled with variable in concentration sugar-water solutions across four separate patches at the core of the forest fragment.

The scientists sought to find out whether the birds would show clear preference for the most sugary food source; whether larger size and heavier weight would guarantee better access to the most nutritious feeders; what strategies would be adopted by each species; and which ones would prove the dominant and most aggressive.

As expected, the scientists concluded that the birds prefer the most sugar-dense solutions. However, when subordinate species, such as the white-throated hummingbird and the versicoloured emerald, confronted dominant species guarding the most nutritious food sources, they would be either frightened or expelled following a short chase. Subsequently, these hummingbirds would resort to the feeders with low-sugar solutions.

In their turn, the Brazilian ruby and the violet-capped woodnymph proved to be the dominant and most aggressive species in the studied area. Upon seeing an ‘intruder’ in their territory, which might be either another species, or belonging to their own, they would vocalise their threats, alert them by perching by the feeder, or expel them following a short pursuit. However, they would only try to limit the access for subordinate hummingbirds if the energy that could be gained from the feeder exceeded the energy loss of the chase.

Contrary to another initial hypothesis, it was not the largest and heaviest species that were the dominant ones. There were two species of hermit hummingbirds which were the largest and the heaviest, however, they expressed no territorial or aggressive behaviour. Instead, they were recorded intruding in the territory of the two dominant hummingbird species. In their turn, the Brazilian ruby and the violet-capped woodnymph would often frighten them. Nevertheless, rather than fleeing, the ‘castaways’ were seen hiding in the shrubs, remaining quiet, and returning to the feeder as soon as the dominant bird was gone. This behaviour strategy, named hide-and-wait, has not been reported in hermit hummingbirds prior to this study, according to the authors.

Having reported all feeding strategies in their study, the scientists conclude that the dominant territorial species and the trapliners feed most frequently and most sufficiently, as they use the most sugary sources.

However, the authors note that the high abundance of food, as well as the presence of aggressive territorial species might have affected the hummingbirds’ behaviour and preferences.

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Original source:

Lanna LL, de Azevedo CS, Claudino RM, Oliveira R, Antonini Y (2017) Feeding behavior by hummingbirds (Aves: Trochilidae) in artificial food patches in an Atlantic Forest remnant in southeastern Brazil. Zoologia 34: 1-9. https://doi.org/10.3897/zoologia.34.e13228

The Radiohead ant: A new species of ‘silky’ ant grows fungus gardens for food

The ants of the genus Sericomyrmex – literally translated as ‘silky ants’ – belong to the fungus-farming ants, a group of ants that have figured out how to farm their own food. The silky ants are the less well-known relatives of the famous leaf-cutter ants – well-studied, photogenic model organisms that you simply cannot avoid if you take a trip to the Neotropics.

For their study, now published in ZooKeys, Ana Ješovnik and Ted R. Schultz from the Smithsonian Institution‘s Ant Lab in Washington, D.C., collected silky ants from across their entire range in Central and South America, and revised the genus based on DNA sequence data and morphology. In the end, they turned out to have discovered three new species.

One of those species, Sericomyrmex radioheadi, collected in the Venezuelan Amazon, was named after the famous British music band Radiohead.

“We wanted to honor their music” one of the authors, Ana Ješovnik, says. “But more importantly, we wanted to acknowledge the conservation efforts of the band members, especially in raising climate-change awareness. ”

Using a scanning electron microscope, the authors found that the bodies of the ants are covered with a white, crystal-like layer. Curiously, this previously unknown layer is present in female ants (both workers and queens), but is entirely absent in males. Both the chemical composition and the function of this layer are unclear.

One possibility is that the layer is microbial in origin and that it has a role in protecting the ants and their gardens from parasites. This is interesting, because most of the fungus-farming ants cultivate antibiotic-producing bacteria on their bodies to protect their gardens from microbial weeds. In the meantime, in Sericomyrmex these bacteria are absent, yet their gardens are also parasite-free. Figuring out if this crystal-like layer has a role in protecting these ants’ fungus gardens might provide clues for managing diseases in human agriculture and medicine.

At only four million years, Sericomyrmex is an evolutionary youngster, the most recently evolved genus of fungus-farming ants, and an example of rapid radiation – comparable to other fast-evolving groups, such as the freshwater fishes in Africa, or the Hawaiian fruit flies.

Rapid radiation is a process in which organisms diversify quickly into a multitude of forms, making these ants good candidates for studies into speciation and evolution. In the present article, the authors acknowledge that some of the species they describe might, in fact, be multiple species that look alike, but because the ants are in the early stages of speciation, this is hard to detect.

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Original source:

Ješovnik A, Schultz TR (2017) Revision of the fungus-farming ant genus Sericomyrmex Mayr(Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Myrmicinae). ZooKeys 670: 1-109. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.670.11839

Origins of an enigmatic genus of Asian butterflies carrying mythological names decoded

A group of rare Asian butterflies which have once inspired an association with Hindu mythological creatures have been quite a chaos for the experts. In fact, their systematics turned out so confusing that in order to decode their taxonomic placement, scientists had to dig up their roots some 43 million years back.

Now, having shed new light on their ancestors, a team of researchers from the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at University of Guelph, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and University of Vienna, published their findings in the open access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.

Together, Drs. Valentina Todisco, Vazrick Nazari and Paul Hebert arrived at the conclusion that the enigmatic genus (Calinaga) originated in southeast Tibet in the Eocene as a result of the immense geological and environmental impact caused by the collision between the Indian and Asian subcontinents. However, the diversification within the lineage was far from over at that point. In the following epochs, the butterflies had to adapt to major changes when Indochina drifted away, leading to the isolation of numerous populations; and then again, when the Pleistocene climatic changes took their own toll.

To make their conclusions, the scientists studied 51 specimens collected from a wide range of localities spanning across India, South China, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. For the first time for the genus, the authors conducted molecular data and combined it with an examination of both genitalia and wing patterns – distinct morphological characters in butterflies. While previous estimates had reported existence of anywhere between one and eleven species in the genus, the present study identified only four, while confirming how easy it is to mislabel samples based on earlier descriptions.

However, the researchers note that they have not sampled specimens from all species listed throughout the years under the name of the genus, so they need additional data to confirm the actual number of valid Calinaga species. The authors are to enrich this preliminary study in the near future, analysing both a larger dataset and type specimens in collaboration with the Natural History Museum of London that holds the largest Calinaga collection.

Despite being beautiful butterflies, the examined species belong to a genus whose name derives from the Hindu mythical reptilian creatures Nāga and a particular one of them – Kaliya, which is believed to live in Yamuna river, Uttar Pradesh, and is notorious for its poison. According to the Hindu myths, no sooner than Kaliya was confronted by the major deity Krishna, did it surrender.

“It seems that the modern taxonomy of Calinaga is in need of a Krishna to conquer these superfluous names and cleanse its taxonomy albeit after careful examination of the types and sequencing of additional material,” comment the authors.

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Original source:

Todisco V, Nazari V, Hebert PDN (2017) Preliminary molecular phylogeny and biogeography of the monobasic subfamily Calinaginae (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae). Zoosystematics and Evolution 93(2): 255-264. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.93.10744

Mapping Ecosystem Services: Collection of theories, methods and practical applications

The new book Mapping Ecosystem Services provides a comprehensive collection of theories, methods and practical applications of ecosystem services (ES) mapping, for the first time bringing together valuable knowledge and techniques from leading international experts in the field. Published by Pensoft, the book is both available in an online open access version via the publisher’s Advanced Books platform, and can be ordered in paperback and hardback format.

Human well-being and economic prosperity are largely dependent on ecosystem conditions and the essential goods and services they provide to mankind, such as fertile soils, multi-functional forests, land and seas, fresh water, clean air, pollination, and climate regulation, to name just a few. Mapping ecosystems and their services is a powerful tool to raise awareness about such areas of ecosystem goods and services supply and demand and to assist environmental education about human dependence on functioning nature.

ES have the potential to become a major tool for policy and decision making on global, national, regional and local scales, with a myriad of possible applications. Sustainable management of natural resources, land use optimisation, environmental protection, nature conservation and restoration, landscape planning, nature-based solutions, climate protection, disaster risk reduction to environmental education and research are just some of the areas where the concept can be applied.

In this context, mapping ecosystem services constitutes a very powerful tool to bring ES into practical application. Being able to efficiently communicate complex spatial information, ES maps are very useful for raising awareness about areas of ecosystem services supply and demand. Furthermore, maps are mandatory instruments for landscape planning, environmental resource management and land use optimisation.

Targeting an audience broader than just the research community, the new Mapping Ecosystem Services book provides in eight chapters insights in ES and mapping theory, ES quantification and mapping methods and tools and related uncertainties, in combination with examples of application in practice.

“Our aim was to present concise chapters in a professional but understandable language in order to facilitate their readability and comprehension. For example footnotes with direct links and suggestions for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter”, explain the editors Prof. Benjamin Burkhard, Leibniz Universität Hannover and Joachim Maes, Joint Research Centre, European Commission. “We hope this book is helpful and supports the appropriate mapping of ES!”.

“There are still big challenges ahead of us such as the improvement of the mapping and assessment of the ecosystem condition and the integration of the assessment of the ecosystem condition with ecosystem services and the construction of the first ecosystem accounts. As highlighted in this book, we are however on a very positive track!”, comments Anne Teller, European Commission, Directorate-General Environment in her preface to the book.

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Original Source:

Burkhard B, Maes J (2017) Mapping Ecosystem Services. Advanced Books. https://doi.org/10.3897/ab.e12837

Order online at: http://books.pensoft.net/book/13161/mapping-ecosystem-services

Additional Information:

The Advanced Books platform is launched by Pensoft to publish new books or re-publish such previously available in paper or PDF only, in an advanced and semantically enhanced HTML and XML formats, to accelerate open access, data publication, mining, sharing and reuse. Advanced Books builds on the novel approaches developed by Pensoft’s journals.

Of Star Trek, Mark Twain and helmets: 15 new species of wasps with curious names

A total of fifteen new species of parasitic wasps have been described from across the Neotropical region. Apart from belonging to a peculiar group of wasps distinct with large and elongated bodies, the new insects also draw attention with the curious names they have been formally assigned with.

Among them, there are species named after characters from the television series Star Trek and Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, and five wasps bearing species names all translating to ‘helmet’. The study, conducted by graduate student Katherine C. Nesheim and Dr. Norman F. Johnson, both affiliated with the Ohio State University, USA, and Dr. Lubomír Masner, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The larvae of the studied wasps parasitise the eggs of lanternflies and planthoppers. These species inhabit exclusively the Neotropical region, with their range stretching from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the north to Misiones in southern Paraguay. Despite being quite abundant in the region, these insects have remained under-researched until recently.

One of the newly discovered wasp is named Phanuromyia odo, where the species name odo refers to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fictional character of the same name. In the popular sci-fi television series, Odo belongs to a species of shapeshifters called Changelings. The reason for the scientists to associate the parasitoid with the character is the spectacular variability observed within the insect species. In fact, it was this peculiarity that, at some point, led the entomologists believe they were dealing with two separate species.

The authors do not make a clear statement that the new species P. pauper has a name inspired by the famous novel The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. Instead, they justify their choice with the fact that the species lacks a specific morphological feature – thus making it ‘poor’. On the other hand, the authors confirm that the new species called P. princeps is of ‘blue blood’ indeed, having its name derive from the other main character of the same book. Furthermore, both species are reported to look a lot like each other.

Among the curious names in the list of new species, there are also five wasps whose scientific names all translate to ‘helmet’ in three different languages – Greek, Latin and Old Norse. The reason behind is that they have unusually large heads, which reminded the scientists of a “knight wearing a helmet”. Likewise, a related species received a name that in Latin means ‘wearing a hood’.

There is also a species, whose name means ‘having long hair’, and another called ‘constellation’ in Latin.

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Original source:

Nesheim KC, Masner L, Johnson NF (2017) The Phanuromyia galeata species group (Hymenoptera, Platygastridae, Telenominae): shining a lantern into an unexplored corner of Neotropical diversity. ZooKeys 663: 71-105. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.663.11554