Tag: biodiversity

Saucer-like shields protect 2 new ‘door head’ ant species from Africa and their nests

Shaped like saucers, or concave shields, and covered with camouflaging layers of debris, the heads of two “door head” ant species are found to differentiate them as new taxa. They use their peculiar features to block the entrances of their nests against intruders like other predatory ants and invertebrates.

Being only the second case of such highly specialized morphologies discovered in Africa, the new representatives of the genus Carebara have been retrieved from sifted leaf-litter collected in rainforests in Western Kenya and the Ivory Coast.

Because of difficulties usually met while studying and identifying ants through dry specimens retrieved from standardised, passive collection methods, the two new species have so far been taxonomically misplaced. The new discovery was made by an international research team, led by Dr. Georg Fischer and Prof. Evan Economo, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Japan. The findings are available in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The “door head” ant individuals are a special worker subcaste that stands out among the other ant colony’s workers, who are responsible for vital tasks such as foraging and brood care. Dr. Georg Fischer and his colleagues analysed the herein described species with next-generation DNA sequencing to show that all different subcastes belong to the same species, despite their highly differing morphologies.

To assure the safety of their nestmates, the queen and the larvae, the two new species have evolved the special worker subcaste with heads covered by a layer of debris such as soil or even organic material, so that they blend in with their surroundings. While the shape of their heads allows them to perfectly fit into the nest entrance, the special armor shields their vulnerable eyes, antennae and mouthparts, as well as highly reduces the chance of enemies intruding into the nest.

The new Carebara species have been given the names C. phragmotica and C. lilith. The former is derived from the term phragmosis, in relation to the special function of their head shape, while the latter comes from the name of a female demon in Jewish mythology.

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Original source:

Fischer G, Azorsa F, Hita Garcia F, Mikheyev AS, Economo EP (2015) Two new phragmotic ant species from Africa: morphology and next-generation sequencing solve a caste association problem in the genus Carebara Westwood. ZooKeys 525: 77-105. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.525.6057

Night calls reveal two new rainforest arboreal frog species from western New Guinea

Tracked by their calls at night after heavy rains, two species of narrow-mouthed frogs have been recorded as new. During the examinations it turned out that one of the studied specimens is a hermaphrodite and another one represents the first record of the genus Cophixalus for the Misool Island.

The field work, conducted by Steve Richards, South Australian Museum, Adelaide, and his team, took place in the Raja Ampat Islands, Indonesian part of New Guinea. Their findings, compiled by Dr. Rainer Guenther, Museum fur Naturkunde, Berlin, are available in the open access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.

Belonging to the narrow-mouthed frog genus Cophixalus that occurs mainly in New Guinea and northern Australia, the two new species have been differentiated by their morphological features along with the specificity of their advertisement calls, produced by males to attract their partners. Both are characterised by small and slender bodies, measuring less than 23 mm in length.

Curious enough, when dissected one of the male specimens, assigned to the new species C. salawatiensis, revealed a female reproductive system with well-developed eggs. Simultaneously, neither its sound-producing organs, nor its calls differed in any way from the rest of the observed males from the same species. Therefore, it is to be considered a hermaphrodite.

Both new frog species have been retrieved from logged lowland rainforests. There the scientists noted that after heavy rains at night the males perched on leaves of bushes and produced sounds, characteristic for each species.

All specimens have been placed in the collection of the Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense (MZB) in Cibinong (Bogor), Indonesia.

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Original source:

Guenther R, Richards S, Tjaturadi B, Krey K (2015) Two new species of the genus Cophixalusfrom the Raja Ampat Islands west of New Guinea (Amphibia, Anura, Microhylidae).Zoosystematics and Evolution 91(2): 199-213.doi: 10.3897/zse.91.5411

Diggers from down under: 11 new wasp species discovered in Australia

After being mostly neglected for more than a hundred years, a group of digger wasps from Australia has been given a major overhaul in terms of species descriptions and identification methods. This approach has led to an almost 50% rise in the number of recognized species of these wasps on the continent. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

They call them with names like “Great Golden Digger” or “Great Black Wasp” in the US and there is a good reason behind it. However, some of these digger wasp species do not impress solely with their looks, but also with their wide range of distribution. Members of the wasp genusSphex can be found in almost every area of the world. Two researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Thorleif Dörfel and Dr. Michael Ohl, have now reexamined the species diversity of Sphex in Australia.

More than a century has passed since the last revision of this group in the Down Under. Using pinned, dried individuals from museum collections all over the world, Dörfel and Ohl inspected over 900 specimens and recorded the morphological characters that they deemed most useful for species differentiation.

A very different lifestyle sets apart some species in the genus Sphex from the common idea that most people evoke on hearing the term “wasp”. Not being eusocial, each female constructs a separate, subterranean nest for their offspring, which is then filled with grasshoppers (or other insects, depending on the wasp species) that have been paralyzed by a sting as a food supply for the larvae. These wasps avoid contact with humans and generally do not show aggressive behavior toward us.

With 23 species known from Australia before this study, now the number has risen to 34. Most of these newly discovered species come from large quantities of material which had not been identified up to species level before. Dörfel and Ohl’s work also provides an up-to-date identification key, both in a regular and in an interactive form, that covers all known Australian species of the genus. Specifically designed to be easily usable and containing many helpful images, it can be utilized by anyone with even minimal prior training.

“Many insect groups are in urgent need of a revision or reclassification”, explained Thorleif Dörfel. “Our understanding of ecosystems depends on the ability to identify the species that are a part of them. The focus of this study was merely a single continent, but we are currently preparing a follow-up project in which we plan to examine representatives of this wasp genus from every major geographic area. Hopefully, this is going to help everybody who works on these animals, whether now or in another one hundred years.”

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Original source:

Dörfel TH, Ohl M (2015) A revision of the Australian digger wasps in the genus Sphex(Hymenoptera, Sphecidae). ZooKeys 521: 1-104. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.521.5995

Flickr and a citizen science website help in recording a sawfly species range expansion

Social network Flickr and citizen science website BugGuide have helped scientists to expand the known range of a rarely collected parasitic woodwasp, native to the eastern United States. Partially thanks to the two online photograph platforms, now the species’ distribution now stretches hundreds of miles west of previous records. Previously known from only 50 specimens mainly from the Northeast, now the species was discovered in the Ozark Mountains by researchers from the University of Arkansas. Their study is published it in the open access journal Biodiversity Data Journal.

Spurred on by the find, Michael Skvarla, a Ph.D. candidate at the university, contacted retired sawfly expert David Smith who alerted him to a hundred unpublished specimens housed in the United States National Entomology Collection at the Smithsonian, many of which were collected as bycatch in surveys that targeted invasive species like emerald ash borer andAsian longhorned beetle. Additional specimens from Iowa, Minnesota, and Manitoba, which also represent significant western range expansions, were found after users posted photos of the species on the social network Flickr and the citizen science website BugGuide.

“We used two resources – photos on social media and bycatch from large trapping surveys – which are often underutilized and I was really happy we could work both of them into the paper,” said Skvarla, the lead author. “This work highlights their utility, as well as the importance of maintaining biological collections like the U.S. National Collection and continuing to collect in undersampled regions like the Ozark Mountains.”

Parasitic woodwasps attack the immature stages of longhorned beetles, jewel beetles, and other woodwasps which bore into wood and have long fascinated entomologists because of this parasitoid nature, which is unique among woodwasps, and rarity in collections. The Arkansas specimens, which belong to the species Orussus minutus and motivated the initial research into the group, were collected as part of a larger survey of the insect fauna around the Buffalo National River.

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Original Source:

Skvarla, M.J., Tripodi, A., Szalanski, A., Dowling, A.P.G. 2015. New records of Orussus minutusMiddlekauff, 1983 (Hymenoptera: Orussidae) represent a significant western range expansion. Biodiversity Data Journal, 3: e35793. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e5793

The four-letter code: How DNA barcoding can accelerate biodiversity inventories

With unprecedented biodiversity loss occurring, we must determine how many species we share the planet with. This can start in our backyards, but speed is critical. A new study shows how biodiversity inventories can be accelerated with DNA barcoding and rapid publishing techniques, making it possible to survey a nature reserve in just four months. The final inventory of 3,500 species was written, released and published in the Biodiversity Data Journal in under one week.

To assess how quickly and effectively DNA barcoding could aid in quantifying biodiversity on a massive scale, the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario partnered with the rare Charitable Research Reserve, a 365+ hectare land reserve located in Ontario, Canada, in an attempt to expand the reserve’s existing species inventory list. To complement this speed in surveying, the two partners also used cutting edge tools and venues for data release and publishing to rapidly disseminate the results.

Surveys of different habitats on the reserve were conducted over four months and culminated in a bioblitz, at which point delegates of the 6th International Barcode of Life Conference joined the effort. “These experts possess invaluable skills that enabled us to identify so many species,” Angela Telfer, University of Guelph, comments in hindsight. “It was a great chance to marry barcoding data with taxonomic data and further our efforts to build a DNA barcode reference library.”

The use of DNA barcoding to conduct this inventory greatly improved the speed at which the results were made available to the public. For the 3,502 specimens barcoded from the bioblitz, the data were generated at an impressive time scale – samples went through lysis, DNA extraction and PCR, sequencing and validation within 72 hours of their collection. Using the BOLD barcode reference library, taxonomy was applied and these results were uploaded to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) via Canadensys within 96 hours of their collection.

Even the choice of journal for publication contributed to the rapid process. The manuscript preparation and submission took considerably less time due to the online writing platform and pre-submission peer-review offered by the Biodiversity Data Journal, used for the first time in this survey. This allowed the 100+ co-authors of this study to all provide input, and reviewers were able to discuss and comment on the paper during the authoring process. All data are now publicly accessible, through the journal article and the various repositories above, and all specimens have been deposited in the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario’s natural history collection and herbarium.

Over the span of four months, the two-staged survey produced a total of 28,916 specimens barcoded or observed across 14 phyla, 29 classes, 117 orders, and 531 families of animals, plants, fungi and lichens. A total of 1,102 species were recorded for the first time for the nature reserve, expanding its existing inventory by 49%.

The results from this mass data collection uncovered abundant biodiversity in taxa that were previously understudied. For example, there were no previous records of spiders at the reserve, but the team’s efforts added an impressive 181 species to the inventory list, three of which were new to the province.

“The survey at rare Charitable Research Reserve is unique to other studies in that within four months – plus a single day of a concentrated bioblitz – more than 25,000 specimens and 3,500 species were recovered, often by non-experts,” explains Connor Warne, a co-author on the paper and specialist in ants. “This model of assessment has the potential to revolutionize the way we uncover diversity in our world. With a coordinated effort, we could implement this model in parks, conservation areas and reserves across the world and take a much needed step in filling in the blank pages of the story of life on earth.”

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Original source:

Telfer A, Young M, Quinn J, Perez K, Sobel C, Sones J, Levesque-Beaudin V, Derbyshire R, Fernandez-Triana J, Rougerie R, Thevanayagam A, Boskovic A, Borisenko A, Cadel A, Brown A, Pages A, Castillo A, Nicolai A, Glenn Mockford B, Bukowski B, Wilson B, Trojahn B, Lacroix C, Brimblecombe C, Hay C, Ho C, Steinke C, Warne C, Garrido Cortes C, Engelking D, Wright D, Lijtmaer D, Gascoigne D, Hernandez Martich D, Morningstar D, Neumann D, Steinke D, Marco DeBruin D, Dobias D, Sears E, Richard E, Damstra E, Zakharov E, Laberge F, Collins G, Blagoev G, Grainge G, Ansell G, Meredith G, Hogg I, McKeown J, Topan J, Bracey J, Guenther J, Sills-Gilligan J, Addesi J, Persi J, Layton K, D’Souza K, Dorji K, Grundy K, Nghidinwa K, Ronnenberg K, Lee K, Xie L, Lu L, Penev L, Gonzalez M, Rosati M, Kekkonen M, Kuzmina M, Iskandar M, Mutanen M, Fatahi M, Pentinsaari M, Bauman M, Nikolova N, Ivanova N, Jones N, Weerasuriya N, Monkhouse N, Lavinia P, Jannetta P, Hanisch P, McMullin R, Ojeda Flores R, Mouttet R, Vender R, Labbee R, Forsyth R, Lauder R, Dickson R, Kroft R, Miller S, MacDonald S, Panthi S, Pedersen S, Sobek-Swant S, Naik S, Lipinskaya T, Eagalle T, Decaëns T, Kosuth T, Braukmann T, Woodcock T, Roslin T, Zammit T, Campbell V, Dinca V, Peneva V, Hebert P, deWaard J (2015) Biodiversity inventories in high gear: DNA barcoding facilitates a rapid biotic survey of a temperate nature reserve. Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e6313. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e6313

New Indonesian crayfish species escapes the decor market to become a freedom fighter

With its orange to greenishly orange motley tip, the new crayfish species has been long-confused with its relatives by the tradesmen who have been collecting them for ornamental purposes. Being exported to countries in Europe, East Asia and America C. snowden specimens inevitably landed in the hands of the scientists from Lukhaup’s team who eventually recognised and proved them as a new crayfish species. Their research is available in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Although the new crayfish species has probably been sold along with its motley relatives under another name for decades, the scientists figured that it is in fact easily distinguishable by its shape of body and colouration. In order to prove it as a separate species, the team used sequence divergence as well.

Having travelled across the world from its so far only known locality, West Papua, New Guinea, the new freshwater crustacean was given the name of the controversial former CIA employee and government contractor Edward Snowden. Its ‘godfather’ is famous for leaking secretive information from the U.S. National Security Agency, which later led him to a continuous search for political asylum. The authors speak of him as an “American freedom fighter” with “achievements in defence of justice, and freedom.”

In their conclusion the authors note that there could be potential threats to the new species. The freshwater crayfish is being collected in large numbers for both the ornamental fish global market and for food for the locals. Asked about the crustacean’s populations, the collectors spoke about a decline in the last few years.

“Clearly, the continued collection of these crayfish for the trade is not a sustainable practice, and if the popularity of the species continues, a conservation management plan will have to be developed, potentially including a captive breeding program,” the researchers comment.

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Original source:

Lukhaup C, Panteleit J, Schrimpf A (2015) Cherax snowden, a new species of crayfish (Crustacea, Decapoda, Parastacidae) from the Kepala Burung (Vogelkop) Peninsula in Irian Jaya (West Papua), Indonesia. ZooKeys 518: 1-14. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.518.6127

Under the wing of science: Two methods for aging nestling Carnaby’s cockatoo species

Multi-year research on two populations of the endangered endemic Carnaby’s cockatoo in southwestern Australia was conducted in order for two separate methods for nestlings aging to be assessed. If accurate enough, Dr. Denis Saunders and his team believe that the results could be vital in the threatened species’ preservation, as explained in the Carnaby’s cockatoo’s recovery plan.

One of the methods they have looked into is based on changes in the physical appearance of nestlings over the 10-11 week nestling period. The other relies on measurements of a nestling’s folded wing length and its comparison with growth curves from measurements of nestlings of known age. In their paper the Australian team also examines the timing and length of the egg-laying season. Their research is published in the open-access journal Nature Conservation.

The researchers point out that accurate nestling aging is essential for many ecological studies. The data could be used in investigating population dynamics, life histories, behaviour, longevity, conservation planning and management. It could also help in scheduling the visits of breeding areas so that the disturbance for the populations is minimised without compromising the results.

The scientists found out that observing the changes in a nestling’s size and feathers is less accurate than measuring the folded wing length. Its main disadvantage turned out to be the lack of distinguishable physical changes once the birds become about nine-week-old. However, “with experience it may be useful for gaining an approximation of the commencement and end of the breeding season without having to handle nestlings to take measurements,” the team says.

Their research on the egg-laying dates concluded that the most effective approach for examining nestlings is to conduct two visits per breeding season. Curiously, their findings showed that in wetter autumns the egg-laying begins earlier.

The team also suggests that their methods could be adopted for aging the currently under-researched closely related Baudin’s cockatoo until more species-specific technique is found.

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Original source:

 

Saunders DA, Dawson R, Nicholls AO (2015) Aging nestling Carnaby’s cockatoo, Calyptorhynchus latirostris, and estimating the timing and length of the breeding season.Nature Conservation 12: 27-42. doi: 10.3897/natureconservation.12.4863

Cave snail from South Korea suggests ancient subterranean diversity across Eurasia

As tiny as 1.7 mm, a snail whose relatives live exclusively in the deep recesses of caves, provided a sensational discovery from the depths of Nodong cave, South Korea, back in 2000 for its collector, J. S. Lee. It is the only cave-dwelling representative of the family of hollow-shelled snails in the whole of Asia with its closest relatives known from as far as Croatia and Northern Spain. The scientists, Adrienne Jochum, Bern University and Natural History Museum Bern, Larisa Prozorova and Mariana Sharyiool from the Far Eastern Russian Academy of Sciences and Barna Páll-Gergely from Shinshu University, published its description in the open-access journalZooKeys.

The Asian species has awaited 15 years to come out of the dark for a name and into the limelight of subterranean biodiversity and conservation awareness. This barely visible snail suggests a former pan-Eurasian distribution of cave-dwelling, hollow-spired snails.

The tiny-shelled treasure, called Koreozospeum nodongense, belongs to a larger group of ancient cosmopolitan air-breathing relatives known to have been amongst the first snail colonisers of land via mangroves about 65 million years ago. Similar to its European relatives from the genus Zospeum, the South Korean snail was also found on muddy cave walls.

Although more than 1,000 caves have been explored in South Korea, Nodong is so far the only one to harbour these beautiful denizens of the dark. Hypotheses made by Culver et. al. in 2006 about the existence of a very narrow, mid-latitudinal ridge of subterranean biodiversity (ca. 42-46°N in Europe and 33-35°N in North America) might clarify this unique find.

A high amount of caves known to exist within these latitudes provide ample habitats for colonisation of life. If this hypothetical ridge were to be extended further East away from Europe, then Koreozopseum‘s gliding along walls in a South Korean cave (33-35°N) makes a strong call for further investigations and discovery of rare biodiversity.

Jochum and her international team described K. nodongense using computer tomographic scans (Nano-CT) in a video film to view and compare the contours and architecture of the very fragile shell. Chemical trace elements, such as aluminum (Al) and silicon (Si) were detected in other scans of the thin diaphanous shell using mineralogical analysis techniques (SEM-EDX). These elements may play a role in the biomineralization (hardness) of the shell or may be contaminants absorbed by the snail from sediment consisting of volcanic ash from former eruptions in the region.

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Original Source:

Jochum A, Prozorova L, Sharyi-ool M, Páll-Gergely B (2015) A new member of troglobitic Carychiidae, Koreozospeum nodongense gen. et sp. n. (Gastropoda, Eupulmonata, Ellobioidea) is described from Korea. ZooKeys 517: 39-57. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.517.10154

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Additional information:

The Naturhistorisches Museum der Burgergemeinde Bern, Switzerland and the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences supported this work.

A centipede from hell

An international team of scientists has discovered the deepest underground dwelling centipede. The animal was found by members of the Croatian Biospeleological Society in three caves in Velebit Mts, Croatia. Recorded as deep as -1100 m the new species was named Geophilus hadesi, after Hades, the God of the Underworld in the Greek Mythology. The research was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Lurking in the dark vaults of some of the world’s deepest caves, the Hades centipede has also had its name picked to pair another underground-dwelling relative named after Persephone, the queen of the underworld.

Centipedes are carnivores that feed on other invertebrate animals. They are common cave inhabitants but members of this particular order, called geophilomorphs, usually find shelter there only occasionally. Species with an entire life cycle confined to cave environments are exceptionally rare in the group.

In fact, so far the Hades and Persephone centipedes are the only two geophilomorphs that have adapted to live exclusively in caves, thus rightfully bearing the titles of a queen and king of the underworld.

Like most cave-dwellers, the newly discovered centipede shows unusual traits, some of which commonly found in cave-dwelling arthropods, including much elongated antennae, trunk segments and leg claws. Equipped with powerful jaws bearing poison glands and long curved claws allowing to grasp and tightly hold its prey, the Hades centipede is among the top predators crawling in the darkness of the cave.

The new species is yet another addition to the astonishing cave critters that live in the Velebit, a mountain that stretches over 145 km in the Croatian Dinaric Karst, which is as a whole considered a hot spot of subterranean diversity. The deepest record comes from the Lukina jama – Trojama cave system, which is 1431 meters deep and is currently ranked the 15th deepest cave in the world.

Just like Hades who ruled over the kingdom of shadows, the new centipede dwells among an extraordinary number of pallid cavernicolous animals, some known to science and many yet to be discovered.

“When I first saw the animal and its striking appearance, I immediately realized that this is a new, hitherto unnamed and highly adapted to cave environment species. This finding comes to prove once again how little we know about the life in caves, where even in the best prospected areas, one can still find incredible animals” says the lead author Pavel Stoev, Pensoft Publishers and National Museum of Natural History, Sofia.

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Original Source:

Stoev P, Akkari N, Komerički A, Edgecombe GD, Bonato L (2015) At the end of the rope:Geophilus hadesi sp. n. – the world’s deepest cave-dwelling centipede (Chilopoda, Geophilomorpha, Geophilidae). In: Tuf IH, Tajovský K (Eds) Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Myriapodology, Olomouc, Czech Republic. ZooKeys 510: 95-114. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.510.9614