Kudlanka nábožná (Mantis religiosa) je příklad teplomilného druhu, který v posledních letech začal expandovat i do severnějších oblastí Evropy. Na základě studia mitochondriálních markerů se ukázalo, že v rámci Evropy kudlanky náleží do tří odlišných genetických linií. Tyto linie (západoevropská, středoevropská a východoevropská) se postupně po poslední době ledové šířily na sever z různých glaciálních refugií. Tuto teorii také podporují paleoklimatická data a distribuční modely možného šíření kudlanek po poslední době ledové., The Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa) is an example of a thermophilic species, which has recently been expanding northwards across Europe. Based on the study of mitochondrial genes, it has been shown, that the European M. religiosa belong to three different genetic lineages (West-, Central- and East-European). These lineages have been gradually spreading northwards from different glacial refugias after the last glacial period. This theory has also been supported using paleoclimatic data and distribution models of the potential spread of M. religiosa after the last glacial period., and Jakub Vitáček, Petr Janšta.
The tenebrionid beetles on 25 circum-Sicilian islands were studied to determine the influence of island geographical and landscape features on three main intercorrelated biogeographical patterns: (1) species richness, studied using species-area and species environment relationships, (2) species assemblage composition, investigated using Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA), and (3) inter-site faunal similarity, investigated using Canonical Correlation Analysis (CANCOR) applied to multidimensional scaling of inter-island faunal dissimilarities. Species richness was mostly influenced by island area and landscape heterogeneity (expressed using various indices of diversity based on land cover categories). When species identities were considered in the CCA, no substantial effect of landscape was detected. Current island isolation did not have a strong influence on species richness, but has a distinct effect in determining species assortments on the remotest islands. Historical influences of Pleistocene landbridge connections were not detectable in species richness relationships using geographical variables in species richness analyses or in assemblage gradients in the CCA, but emerged distinctly from inter-island similarities in the CANCOR. and Simone Fattorini.
A cladistic analysis of the species of Sericania Motschulsky, 1860, was executed using fifty-six morphological characters of adults. The monophyly of the genus is supported by the phylogenetic trees generated. Among the three major lineages indicated by the strict consensus tree the East Asian Sericania fuscolineata lineage represents the genus Sericania as defined "originally" and adopted by subsequent authors. The second, the clade Sericania nepalensis group + Sericania sp. 2, is a sister group to the S. fuscolineata clade. Both constitute a sister group to the third major lineage, the Sericania kashmirensis clade, which is endemic in the drier North-West Himalaya where it is the most diverse monophyletic group of Sericini. Provided that the stem species of the S. kashmirensis clade was xerophilous, the origin of this clade can not predate the early Miocene. Based on paleoclimatical and geological data, two competing hypotheses are proposed to explain the evolution of the xerophilous Sericania lineage: (a) a basal splitting within Sericania occurred because of the altitudinal and climatic barrier posed by the Himalaya, which separated the xerophilous lineage in the north (Tibet) from the hygrophilous lineage in the south-east (S slope of Himalaya/ Tibet), or (b) it was a consequence of the increase in the climatic east-west contrast along the southern slope of the Himalaya, which strengthened with the onset of monsoons 8 Ma ago.
We analysed and compared the structure and parameters of the songflight calls of expansive Pipistrellus kuhlii and Pipistrellus lepidus, that recently colonized Central Europe from the south and east, respectively. Bat calls were recorded mainly in urban areas of Central Europe and the Balkans, including a narrow zone of these species' recent parapatric or sympatric occurrence (around the Carpathians and the eastern part of the Pannonian Basin). The newly described songflight calls of P. lepidus consist of more elements (median 6), are longer (mean 56.4 ms) and of a higher frequency of maximum energy (mean 25.7 kHz) than those of P. kuhlii (median 3, mean 41.0 ms and mean 14.0 kHz, respectively). This finding provides new evidence that P. lepidus represents a different species, in accordance with results from previous genetic and morphological studies. Reported differences in songflight calls permit the acoustic discrimination of P. kuhlii and P. lepidus, which is not possible based on overlapping parameters of their echolocation calls. Our findings enable distributional and ecological studies of these two species, based on acoustic methods, in the context of their rapid European expansion and the local co-occurrence.
The scydmaenine tribe Eutheiini is recorded from Australia for the first time. Paraneseuthia carltoni sp. n. and P. booloumba sp. n. are described and illustrated, both from Queensland. In a parsimony-based phylogenetic analysis using adult morphological characters including genital features, the Australian species together with the Melanesian type species of Paraneseuthia Franz, P. peckorum Franz, were found to be more closely related to East Palearctic congeners than to most of the Paraneseuthia in the Sunda-Papuan area. The topology of the tree and biogeographic data suggest a Sundaland origin of this genus, with three major dispersal routes from a center located in present-day Sumatra: (i) north-eastern colonization of the Palearctic Far East, via a continental or island-arc route; (ii) south-eastern dispersal to East Australia; and (iii) eastern dispersal to Melanesia, possibly via the Quaternary Outer-Melanesian Arc. The important role of dispersal in the evolution of Paraneseuthia is supported by the presence of this genus on isolated volcanic islands, such as the southern Moluccas and Fiji, which were never connected to larger land masses. and Paweł Jałoszyński.
The species of the genus Cimex (Heteroptera: Cimicidae) are important ectoparasites of European bats. Unlike other ectoparasites, they are attached to the body of their host only when they need to feed, otherwise they stay in refugia in bat roosts. Consequently, they are often overlooked by bat specialists and in many countries they are either unknown or poorly characterized. This study reports results from thorough investigations of bat roosts of diverse bat species in a Northwest-Southeast transect across Europe: Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria. The distribution of Cimex lectularius follows the synanthropic habitats
of its principal hosts, Myotis myotis and M. emarginatus, both Mediterranean elements of the European fauna. The climate in natural roosts (i.e. caves) inhabited by these bats in southern areas appears to restrain the presence of cimicids. In central Europe, C. pipistrelli parasitizes, beside M. myotis, many crevice-dwelling bat species indigenous to the boreal zone. However, in southern Europe, it appears only in connection with Nyctalus noctula. C. lectularius was confirmed for five host bat species and newly recorded for
Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, C. pipistrelli was confirmed for seven bat species and newly recorded for Myotis nattereri. The first record of C.
emarginatus outside of its type locality and Myotis alcathoe as a new host are reported. The host preferences of the species of the genus Cimex
are discussed.
This study investigated the potential of a root rot causing fungal pathogen to affect the geographical distribution of plant species. A glasshouse experiment was conducted that compared the responses of congeneric plant species of contrasting range types to the presence or absence of a soil borne fungal pathogen at three different moisture levels. Five congeneric plant species pairs were selected, each with one species present and one absent in humid western Europe: Centaurea scabiosa–C. stoebe, Dianthus deltoides–D. carthusianorum, Inula conyzae–I. hirta, Potentilla neumanniana–P. cinerea and Scabiosa columbaria–S. ochroleuca. The oomycete Pythium ultimum was selected as the root rot causing soil borne pathogen because of its wide geographical distribution, wide host range and reported preference for high soil moisture. The response variables measured included relative growth rates of above- and belowground biomass, leaf number and the shoot-root ratio. Two plant species pairs (Dianthus and Scabiosa) showed a significant interaction of distribution type with presence of the pathogen. The species with a continental distribution suffered a greater reduction in growth due to the pathogen than the species with an oceanic distribution. However, across all species and genera the pathogen’s effect was not dependent on range type or soil moisture and affected only RGR of leaf number. The study revealed that unspecialized fungal pathogens might have an effect on the performance of some plant species and might affect continentally distributed species more than oceanic ones, which might put them at disadvantage when combined with, for example, competition. Nevertheless, this effect was not recorded for all genera tested. Given the little knowledge on the effects of unspecialized pathogens on wild plant species, further studies with different soil borne fungal pathogens causing root rot and an enlarged set of plant species are recommended.
The distribution of vascular plants in grid-cells and its relationship to the environmental correlates (driving factors) were studied using numerical methods (divisive classification and ordination). The first level of division in the classification distinguished forest and non-forest groups of grid-cells, and the second level four groups (containing predominantly species of base-rich forests at high altitudes, species of acidophilous mountain forests and small mountain grasslands, ruderal and meadows species at low altitudes, and species of thermophilous and basiphilous fringes and abandoned meadows). Within the study area, geographically consistent areas were delimited by correlating the groups, indicated by the divisive classification, with altitude and forest cover. Most differences in the Ellenberg indicator values for species in these groups for light, temperature, continentality, soil reaction and soil moisture were statistically significant. A number of variables were effective predictors (e.g. potential direct solar irradiation), physical geography (altitude, slope), land-cover (forest cover, area of urban zones) and geological bedrock were the key determinants of the species composition in the study area. However, even the most spatially correlated (according to Moran’s I measure) were the naturally contiguous variables such as topographical features (altitude, slope and aspect). Generally, the grid-cells at low altitudes contained more species due to the co-occurrence of man-made habitats with fragments of semi-natural habitats. A relatively large percentage of the variation (15.8%) was accounted for by the spatial structure of the data, the environmental factors explained 18.9%, but 65.3% of the floristic variance remained unexplained. The most spatially autocorrelated variables were also the most correlated with regard to species composition. However, the relatively high autocorrelation in the species data and their derivates had comparable or lower effect on species composition than the most autocorrelated environmental factors. The results were compared with those of other European studies, and possible bias due to the different ways of collecting and analysing data, and effect of different scales discussed.
Karyotyped specimens from three populations of spined loaches, genus Cobitis, that occurred in the Veleka (Bulgaria), Chernaya (Crimean Peninsula) and Southern Bug (Ukraine) Rivers in north-western Pontic region were subjected to enzyme electrophoresis (for 5 loci), comparative morphological studies, and phylogenetic analysis (based on PCR of a 1230 bp fragment of mtDNA and the cytochrome b gene). These studies resulted in the description of loaches from the Crimean Peninsula as a new species Cobitis taurica, while the taxonomic status of populations from the Veleka and S. Bug rivers appeared to be controversial and in need of further investigation.
Mice belonging to the Mus musculus species complex from the north-eastern Iranian Plateau (Khorasan province) have been genetically characterised for allozymic variation, mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome type and compared with samples from other geographic regions. The present study shows the existence of a transition zone between pure M. m. musculus in the North and animals related to M. m. castaneus in the South. The origin of this transition (primary or secondary contact) and the various biogeographic scenarios about its origin are discussed in the light of these new data sets. The possible role of the Harirud valley in the geographic connection between Central Asia and the Middle East is discussed.