Aphids play an important role in the life of many ant species supplying them with energy-rich carbohydrate food and in exchange receiving some degree of protection from natural enemies. This study focused on the degree of protection different ants provide myrmecophilous aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in multispecies ant communities. Field investigations were carried out in steppe and forest plant associations in Siberia. The potential level of aggressiveness of six ant species (Formica rufa Linnaeus, F. pratensis Retzius, Lasius fuliginosus (Latreille), L. niger (Linnaeus), Camponotus saxatilis Ruzsky and Myrmica rubra Linnaeus) towards imagines and larvae of ladybirds and lacewings and larvae of hoverflies was tested in the laboratory. A comparative analysis of the occurrence of aphidophages in colonies of the aphid Chaitophorus populeti Panzer and of all aphid-symbionts tended by different ants in the study area has shown that the degree of protection of myrmecophilous aphids from natural enemies significantly differs among ants and is positively correlated with ant colony size. On the whole, the degree of protection of myrmecophilous aphids from aphidophages depends both on the potential level of aggressiveness of ants and their foraging strategy when collecting honeydew (degree of specialisation among honeydew collectors). As the dominant ants Formica s. str. were the most aggressive and provided aphids with the highest degree of protection, we suppose that these ants have the most important influence on the survival of the symbionts in multispecies ant communities whereas the other ants, which live in small colonies of about 102–103 workers, appear at least partially to take advantage of the mutualistic relationships of the dominant ants., Tatiana A. Novgorodova, Anton V. Gavrilyuk., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Caligus brevicaudatus Scott, 1901, a common but poorly known species of parasitic copepod, is redescribed from newly collected specimens of both sexes. The new material was collected from the body surface of tub gurnards, Chelidonichthys lucerna (Linnaeus), caught in eastern Mediterranean waters off the Turkish coast. Inadequately described female structures from earlier descriptions are redescribed and illustrated in detail and the male of C. brevicaudatus is described for the first time. The new material of C. brevicaudatus is compared with material collected by A. Scott and stored in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London. In addition, a voucher specimen of Caligus uranoscopi Vaissière, 1955, stored in the collections of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris is re-examined. Caligus uranoscopi is recognised as a junior subjective synonym of C. brevicaudatus since it does not differ in any substantive characters., İbrahim Demirkale, Argun Akif Özak, Geoffrey Allan Boxshall., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Information on the dispersal ability of flightless insect species associated with woodlands is severely lacking. Therefore, a study was conducted examining the dispersal ability of wood cricket (Nemobius sylvestris) juveniles (nymphs) and adults in a wooded landscape on the Isle of Wight, UK, to further our understanding of the ecology and management of this and other flightless insects. A series of experiments were conducted where nymphs and adults were released and observed at a range of spatial-temporal scales within different habitat environments. The results of this investigation indicated no difference in the dispersal ability of wood cricket nymphs and adults. However, adult females moved less than adult males. Adult males were found to spread twice as fast as females, and males were found capable of traversing up to 55 m away from woodland habitat through semi-natural and grazed grassland. Additionally, rates of population spread of both wood cricket nymphs and adults (males and females) were found to be accurately described by the inverse-power function, predicting only few individuals dispersing over time. Together this indicates that overall colonization success and rate of population spread, being female dependent, is likely to be low for this species. Wood crickets were found to live in and able to move along mature woodland edges directly bordering agricultural land. This indicates that conservation initiatives focusing on creating woodland corridors and developing woodland habitat networks have the potential to facilitate the spread and population viability of wood crickets, if the woodland edges are given enough time to develop. However, long-term monitoring is needed to evaluate the overall effectiveness of such approaches. and Niels C. BROUWERS, Adrian C. NEWTON, Sallie BAILEY.
This study determined the scale of the phoresy of mesostigmatid mite by Ips typographus. Thirty pheromone traps in the Karkonosze National Park (Poland) caught 10,575 bark beetles on which there were 2,388 mesostigmatid mites belonging to eight species. The most numerous mites were Dendrolaelaps quadrisetus (1076 ind.) and Trichouropoda polytricha (1067 ind.). and Dariusz J. Gwiazdowicz, Jacek Kamczyc, Jerzy Bloszyk.
Honey bees are not only important for honey production but also as pollinators of wild and cultivated plants. The Eastern honeybee (Apis cerana) is more resistant to several pathogens than the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera), and the genomes of two strains of the nominotypical subspecies, A. cerana cerana, northern (Korea) and southern (China) strains, have been sequenced. Apis cerana japonica, another subspecies of A. cerana, shows many specific features (e.g. mildness, low honey production and frequently absconds) and it is important to study the molecular biological and genetic aspects of these features. To accelerate the genetic research on A. cerana japonica, we sequenced the genome of this subspecies. The draft genome sequence of A. cerana japonica presented here is of high quality in terms of basic genome status (e.g. N50 is 180 kbp, total length is 211 Mbp, and largest contig length is 1.31 Mbp) and BUSCO results. The gene set of A. cerana japonica was predicted using AUGUSTUS software and the set of genes was annotated using Blastp and InterProScan, and GO terms were added to each gene. The number of genes is higher than in A. mellifera and in the two strains of A. cerana cerana sequenced previously. A small number of transposable elements and repetitive regions were found in A. cerana japonica, which are also in the genomes of A. mellifera and the northern and southern strains of A. cerana cerana. Apis cerana is resistant to several pathogens that seriously damage A. mellifera. We searched for 41 orthologs related to the IMD and Toll pathways, which have key roles in the immune reaction to invading pathogens. Some orthologs were not identified in the genome of the northern strain of A. cerana cerana. This indicates that the Toll and IMD pathways function in the same way as in A. mellifera and Drosophila melanogaster., Kakeru Yokoi, Hironobu Uchiyama, Takeshi Wakamiya, Mikio Yoshiyama, Jun-Ichi Takahashi, Tetsuro Nomura, Tsutomu Furukawa, Shunsuke Yajima, Kiyoshi Kimura., and Obsahuje bibliografii
One new genus with two new fossil species, Pumilanthocoris gracilis gen. n. sp. n. and P. obesus gen. n. sp. n., which were found in the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation of Inner Mongolia, China, are described and illustrated. These are the earliest fossil records of Vetanthocoridae., Wejing Hou ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
We studied the effect of flooding on a carabid community inhabiting grassland in a large river valley (W Poland). We used pitfall-traps to catch beetles from April to November 1999–2001. Some of the samples collected were preceded by floods during the collecting period, which enabled us to evaluate the effects of flooding on species composition and abundance. We collected 17,722 individuals belonging to 108 species. The number of species and individuals per sample differed between plots and showed a nonlinear decrease over time, from spring to autumn. Carabids were more abundant in samples collected after floods than in the control samples. In contrast, the expected cumulative number of species as a function of the number of individuals collected was lower in samples collected after floods than in the control samples. In the case of the most abundant species the species-specific responses in terms of the numbers caught after flooding differed, with those of (e.g. Agonum micans) increasing and those of (Amara plebeja, Epaphius secalis) decreasing. This study shows that floods filter the community with the result that some species increase in abundance but the overall species richness decreases. Therefore natural floods are important in shaping the structure of communities of epigeic carabids on floodplains., Pawel Sienkiewicz, Michal Zmihorski., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
The relative effects of two components of mountain environmental heterogeneity, altitude (1500, 1700 and 2000 m a.s.l.) and habitat (pastures, coniferous forests, wet meadows, scrub and anthropogenic woods) on the diversity of dung beetles in an Italian alpine valley were determined. The additive gamma diversity analysis indicated that differences among habitats (ßH) were always smaller than those among altitudes (ßA), irrespective of the measures used; it also showed that the contribution of ßA to γ-diversity was higher than expected by chance for all the measures of species diversity used, whereas the contribution of ßH was significantly higher in the case of one measure only. Generalized linear models confirmed that altitude was the most important factor associated with local diversity, with all the diversity parameters considered progressively and significantly increasing with increasing altitude. Indicator species analyses revealed that dung beetle altitudinal and habitat diversity patterns depended on local choice of species, with preferences for altitudinal levels being more numerous and apparent than those for habitats. Despite the minor effect of habitat differences, comparing a three-habitat with a single-habitat scenario it was possible to demonstrate that greater habitat heterogeneity is associated with a significantly greater diversity of dung beetles. This study suggests that preservation of local environmental heterogeneity by means of traditional pastoral activities should be encouraged as a means of conserving the diversity of dung beetle species in the Alps. and Matteo NEGRO, Claudia PALESTRINI, Maria Teresa GIRAUDO, Antonio ROLANDO.
Pitfall trapping is the most frequently used sampling technique for epigeal arthropods. Trap design could significantly affect the catch so the results of studies using different trap designs may be difficult to compare. Although species composition is frequently investigated in ecological studies, however when pitfall trapping is employed, the effect of trap design on the recorded species composition is rarely considered. In the present study, we investigated the effect of trap construction (funnel or cup trap) and the preservative used (formaldehyde or propylene glycol) on total catch, catch of particular species, species richness and species composition of the ground beetle assemblage sampled. We were interested in the extent to which trap design could bias these characteristics. Total catch was significantly affected by trap construction and preservative used, with the effect of the latter being the stronger. Species richness was only slightly affected by trap design when assemblages caught by traps of a particular type were corrected for unequal sample size. Moreover, we show that the traps of different designs differ in their efficiency for catching particular species of carabid and thus the composition of assemblages recorded using pitfall traps is affected by trap construction and the preservative used. We conclude that to assess the full significance of the effect of pitfall trap design on the results of ecological studies on epigeal arthropods it is necessary to simultaneously use traps of various designs., Michal Knopp, Jan Růžička., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Environmental degradation caused by climate change greatly affects the forest ecosystems of the Mediterranean region, in particular the sclerophyllous Quercus forests typical of central and southern Spain. An important pest that damages oak trees in this area is Coraebus florentinus (Herbst), a heliophilous and thermophilous insect whose survival could be favoured by the temperature increase associated with climate change. The main objective of this paper was to determine the effect of temperature on the duration and percentage survival of the preimaginal stage of C. florentinus and provide data for determining more precisely when to control for this pest by applying silvicultural techniques. The experiment included six treatments, with 25 branches infested with C. florentinus in each of the treatments, which were kept at different temperatures over the range 15–28°C. The results clearly support the hypothesis that higher temperatures affect the post-larval development of C. florentinus by increasing the percentage survival and shortening the developmental time. In fact, partial correlations confirm that the highest percentages of emergence and survival were recorded when the developmental times were shortest, which occurred at the highest temperatures used. Despite the clear influence of temperature on the development of the preimaginal stage of C. florentinus, additional trials are required to accurately determine future trends in C. florentinus populations. Accordingly, it is necessary to develop monitoring programs in zones affected by C. florentinus and to apply scheduled management techniques that ensure the control of this species., Ana M. Cárdenas, Patricia Gallardo., and Obsahuje seznam literatury