Tag: South Africa

More than just hippos and crocs: The hidden biodiversity of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park

iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the sub-tropical north-eastern corner of South Africa has become famous for its birdlife, crocodiles and hippopotamuses that frolic in the warm estuarine waters of Lake St Lucia. However, there’s more to the park than the “big and hairy”, according to aquatic ecologist Prof Renzo Perissinotto at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth, whose research is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

“Although we have spent several decades focusing on life in the estuary, we only recently came to realise that much of the wealth of biodiversity in the park exists in the small freshwater ponds that are adjacent to, but disconnected from, the main lake,” he says.

The St Lucia lake itself is generally brackish and is located on a large sandy expanse known as the Maputaland coastal plain. Dotted across the landscape of this coastal foreland are numerous temporary freshwater ponds, seeps and small streams that are disconnected from the brackish lake body.

A team of self-proclaimed “beetle nerds”, led by Prof Perissinotto, got together from NMMU and Plymouth University (UK) and uncovered more species of water beetles in these tiny water bodies than is known for any other similar-sized region in southern Africa.

The beetle collection trips were done over a 16-month period and revealed 68 species of predaceous water beetles alone, termed more formally as the “Hydradephaga”. The iSimangaliso Wetland Park houses approximately 20% of the total number of known species for this beetle group in the whole of southern Africa. Of the species collected during their expeditions, five have never been recorded in South Africa before, highlighting our poor understanding of aquatic insect distributions in this part of the world.

Most of the species collected (almost 80%) belonged to the family Dytiscidae, more commonly known as “diving beetles” due to their lifestyle that involves coming up for air and immediately diving back down to the depths to carry on hunting unsuspecting prey, which can be as large as small fish and amphibians.

Prof Perissinotto and his NMMU colleague Dr Matthew Bird, together with water beetle specialist Prof David Bilton (Plymouth University), collected specimens ranging from 1 mm to almost 5 cm in length (the tadpole eaters). According to Prof Bilton, “Irrespective of size, these water beetles are a crucial component of the iSimangaliso ecosystem in that they are the primary predators in these temporary wetlands, which generally lack fish. Their abundance and diversity can be used to gauge the overall health of wetland ecosystems as they are sensitive to pollution, for instance”.

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Original source:

Perissinotto R, Bird MS, Bilton DT (2016) Predaceous water beetles (Coleoptera, Hydradephaga) of the Lake St Lucia system, South Africa: biodiversity, community ecology and conservation implications. ZooKeys 595: 85-135. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.595.8614

Hollywood star Brad Pitt shares a name with a new wasp species from South Africa

Not only did an international research team discover two new endoparasitic wasp species in South Africa and India, and significantly expanded their genera’s distributional range, but they also gave a celebrity name to a special one of them.

While thinking of a name for the new wasp, Dr Buntika A. Butcher, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, recalled her long hours of studying in her laboratory right under the poster of her favourite film actor. This is how a parasitic wasp from South Africa was named after Hollywood star Brad Pitt. The researchers have published their findings in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The new wasp species, called Conobregma bradpitti, belongs to a large worldwide group of wasps parasitising in moth or butterfly caterpillars. These wasps lay their eggs into a host, which once parasitised starts hardening. Thus, the wasp cocoon can safely develop and later emerge from the ‘mummified’ larva. Despite their macabre behaviour, many of these wasp species are considered valuable in agriculture because of their potential as biological control.

Brad Pitt’s flying namesake is a tiny creature measuring less than 2 mm. Its body is deep brown, nearly black in colour, while its head, antennae and legs are brown-yellow. The wings stand out with their much brighter shades.

Interestingly, the wasp with celebrity name unites two, until now, doubtful genera. Being very similar, they had already been noted to have only four diagnostic features that set them apart. However, C. bradpitti shared two of those with each. Thus, the species prompted the solution of the taxonomic problem and, as a result, the two were synonymised.

In their paper, the authors from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand and the University of Calicut, India, also describe another new species of parasitic wasp. It is the first from its subtribe spotted in the whole of India, while its closest ‘relative’ lives in Nepal.

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Original source:

Butcher BA, Quicke DLJ, Shreevihar S, Ranjith AP (2016) Major range extensions for two genera of the parasitoid subtribe Facitorina, with a new generic synonymy (Braconidae, Rogadinae, Yeliconini). ZooKeys 584: 109-120. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.584.7815

South African endemic mountain plant gives itself up after 147-year absence

South Africa’s mountains are essential to the economic well-being of the country, providing many goods and services essential for social and economic prosperity. However, the biodiversity value of these mountains is still poorly understood. This is exemplified by the large number of plant species still only known from one or two collections made well over a century ago.

The Great Escarpment Biodiversity Research Programme, led by Prof. Nigel Barker, University of Pretoria, has been systematically documenting plant diversity and endemism along much of the Great Escarpment – southern Africa’s principal mountain system.

“This ‘un-sexy’ foot-slogging research has yielded a number of valuable discoveries and rediscoveries, highlighting the biodiversity value of these mountains,” points lead author Dr Ralph Clark, Rhodes University, South Aftica.

One of these rediscoveries is a plant last seen only by one more person: Mrs Elizabeth Barber, one of South Africa’s finest women botanists of the 19th century. Mrs Barber has been a regular correspondent with Charles Darwin and has provided material of South African plants to numerous institutions in Europe.

“Her discovery – Lotononis harveyi, also known under the common name ‘Mrs Barber’s Beauty’ in her honour, was published in 1862, but unfortunately, as her specimen did not include a date, we do not know the actual year in which she discovered it,” he explains. “What we do know, is that it mysteriously disappeared for at least 147 years, despite attempts to relocate it.”

In 2009, Dr Ralph Clark undertook an extensive collecting trip to the Great Winterberg, where he accidently stumbled across a flowering specimen of ‘Mrs Barber’s Beauty’. It was only in 2014, however, that the plant was properly recognised for what it was, and a second trip was quickly planned.

The results of the second trip included the first photographs and ecological records of this apparently scarce species. Dr Clark’s results have been published in the open access journal PhytoKeys.

“There are currently only six known individuals of this species. The main limiting factors appear to be fire and grazing, the plants only occurring where these two prominent ecological actors have been excluded for some time,” notes Dr Clark.

“However, with much of these mountains still poorly explored by biodiversity scientists, it is possible that additional individuals will come to light. For now the species will be regarded as Critically Endangered.”

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Original source:

Clark VR, Bentley J, Dold AP, Zikishe V, Barker NP (2016) The rediscovery of the Great Winterberg endemic Lotononis harveyi B.-E.van Wyk after 147 years, and notes on the poorly known Amathole endemic Macowania revolutaOliv. (southern Great Escarpment, South Africa). PhytoKeys 62: 1-13. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.62.8348