Tag: pests

An invasive leaf-mining moth, feeding on cornelian cherry, has been gradually expanding its distributional range from its native Central Europe northwards for a period likely longer than 60 years. During that period, it has remained under the cover of a taxonomic confusion, while going by a name shared with another species that feeds on common dogwood.

To reproduce, this group of leaf-mining moths lay their eggs in specific plants, where the larvae make tunnels or ‘mines’, in the leaves. At the end of these burrows, they bite off an oval section, in which they can later pupate. These cutouts are also termed ‘shields’, prompting the common name of the family, the shield-bearer moths.

During a routine study into the DNA of leaf-mining moths, Erik van Nieukerken, researcher at Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands, discovered that the DNA barcodes of the species feeding on common dogwood and cornelian cherry were in fact so different that they could only arise from two separate species. As a result, Erik teamed up with several other scientists and amateur entomologists to initiate a more in-depth taxonomic study.

Curiously, it turned out that the two species had been first identified on their own as early as in 1899, before being described in detail by a Polish scientist in the 50s. Ironically, it was another Polish study, published in the 70s, that regarded the evidence listed in that description as insufficient and synonymised the two leaf-miners under a common name (Antispila treitschkiella).

Now, as a result of the recent study undertaken by van Nieukerken and his collaborators, the two moth species – Antispila treitschkiella and Antispila petryi – have their diagnostic features listed in a research article published in the open access journal Nota Lepidopterologica.

“We now establish that the species feeding on common dogwood, A. petryi, does not differ only in its DNA barcode, but also in characters of the larva, genitalia and life history,” explains Erik van Nieukerken. “A. petryi has a single annual generation, with larvae found from August to November, whereas A. treitschkiella, which feeds on cornelian cherry, has two generations, with larvae occurring in June-July and once again between September and November.”

While van Nieukerken and his team were working on the taxonomy of the moths, David C. Lees of the Natural History Museum, London, spotted a female leaf-miner in the Wildlife Garden of the museum. Following consultation with van Nieukerken, it turned out that the specimen in question was the first genuine A. treitschkiella ever to be found in Britain. Subsequently, the research groups decided to join forces, leading to the present discovery.

Despite the lack of data for the British Isles, it is already known that, in continental Europe, the cornelian cherry-feeding species had established in the Netherlands and much of Germany in the 1990s.

With common dogwood being widely planted, it is now suspected that A. petryi has recently reached Sweden and Estonia, even though there was no previous evidence of the leaf-miner expanding its range.

“This discovery should provoke the attention of gardeners and other members of the public alike to the invasive leafminers attacking some of our much admired trees and shrubs, as we have demonstrated for the cornelian cherry – a species well-known for its showy red berries in the autumn,” says David Lees.

“Especially in Britain, we hope that they check their photos for the conspicuous leaf mines, recognisable by those oval cutouts, to see if they can solve the mystery of when the invasion, which is now prominent on cornels around London, actually started, and how fast it progresses. Citizen scientists can help.”

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Original source:

van Nieukerken EJ, Lees DC, Doorenweerd C, Koster S(JC), Bryner R, Schreurs A, Timmermans MJTN, Sattler K (2018) Two European Cornus L. feeding leafmining moths, Antispila petryi Martini, 1899, sp. rev. and A. treitschkiella (Fischer von Röslerstamm, 1843) (Lepidoptera, Heliozelidae): an unjustified synonymy and overlooked range expansion. Nota Lepidopterologica 41(1): 39-86. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.41.22264

The largest group of fanworm species with rigid chalky (calcareous) tubes belong to the Hydroides genus, and are easily recognised thanks to the shape of their beautifully ornate tube plugs. Hydroides is economically important as its members have the potential to cover immersed marine structures with massive nuisance settlements of chalky biofouling. The best-known example is Hydroides elegans, which settles on boat hulls so readily that colonies of it are perpetually in transit around the world, hitch-hiking to new places.

Latin names of animals mostly do not change over the decades because they are kept stable by a code book of naming rules. However, a mistake has recently been discovered regarding Hydroides. It turns out that it is a feminine genus rather than masculine, thus requiring each of the 107 Hydroides species names, described since 1768, to be re-examined so that the appropriate spelling, determined by the derivation of each name, can be used consistently by all biologists in future.

Scientists Geoffrey Read, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, Harry ten Hove, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Netherlands, Yanan Sun and Elena Kupriyanova, Australian Museum, have carefully compiled the data on original Hydroides names, and published a checklist paper in the open access journal ZooKeys.

‘Detective’ work has often been required to get the details, as early biologists have been remarkably vague about the names they created and where their worms had come from. Fortunately, the Biodiversity Heritage Library has digitised many of the legacy taxonomic works required and it was possible to find out some unexpected information such as that species H. floridana actually did not come from Florida, although its name suggests it did.

Some Hydroides names have a descriptive basis that fits how the worms look, such as H. bulbosa, H. elegantula and H. longispinosa, others are named after people or places, for example, H. dafnii (after its collector, Yaacob Dafni) and H. sanctaecrucis (after Saint Croix Island). Yet, there are others, whose names are of quite tricky origin. It turns out that H. dianthus was actually named after a group of popular garden flowers, and H. euplaeana and H. stoichadon commemorate the long-forgotten names of tiny Mediterranean islands.

A few 19th century Hydroides descriptions are so bad that taxonomists have given up on using the names. However, one of these discarded names was revived last century by American biologists and was then used in often-cited research on sperm biology. Now, we can only guess what the actual species was.

Hydroides itself is a very old name, but it arose in a somewhat accidental and misleading way (in a letter to Linnaeus), because the worms have absolutely no connection to true hydroids, the well-known group of colonial animals related to corals.

The Hydroides species original descriptions are mostly accessible via the checklist because one third of the reports cited in the checklist are linked to the open access Biodiversity Heritage Library, and a large proportion are matched to an online source. While in the past one could only expect to find recorded the geolocations (the latitudes and longitudes) of worms collected during ship voyages, now the original localities of all the Hydroides are finally mapped. Further information on the taxonomy of all Hydroides, including many now regarded as synonyms, is available via links to the World Register of Marine Species Polychaeta web pages.

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Original source:

Read GB, ten Hove HA, Yanan Sun Y, Kupriyanova EK (2017) Hydroides Gunnerus, 1768 (Annelida, Serpulidae) is feminine: a nomenclatural checklist of updated names. ZooKeys 642: 1-52. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.642.10443

Tag: pests

Double trouble: Invasive insect species overlooked as a result of a shared name

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