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1. New country record and commentary for Aulacidea hei Wang et al. (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Aulacideini)

   https://doi.org/10.56222/28166531.2024.36  

   Nastasi, Louis F; Deans, Andrew R (January 2024, Specimen)

   Favret, Colin (Ed.)

   The herb gall wasp fauna of the Eastern Palearctic is a diverse but understudied assemblage (Melika 2006). Recently, two species have been described from China: Aulacidea hei Wang et al., 2012 and A. manchuria Nastasi, 2024 (Nastasi & Deans 2024). While the latter species was described with high-quality images and a detailed discussion of its taxonomy, A. hei is virtually unknown aside from a morphological description and several photos. We discovered an herb gall wasp among unsorted cynipoids on loan from the Entomology Museum of Utah State (EMUS, Logan, Utah, USA) that perfectly agrees with the original description and images of A. hei. Locating this specimen allows us to re-illustrate key diagnostic characters, discuss its placement within the Aulacideini, and highlight important label data. The new specimen was collected in Russia, a new country record for A. hei. 

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2. Coupling between landward and seaward fringes of sandy beaches: algal deposits on the upper beach influence biogeochemistry and faunal assemblages in the swash zone

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-024-04524-0  

   Lastra, M; De_Pablo, L; López, J; Soliño, F; Schlacher, TA (February 2025, Marine Biology)

   Abstract Energy subsidies from the sea typically underpin ocean-exposed sandy beach ecosystems. Strandings of detached macroalgae – ‘wrack’ – can be a spectacular form of such cross-ecosystem transfers of organic matter that sustain consumers in the recipient shore system; this has given rise to a model of wrack promoting the diversity and abundance of invertebrates, with scaling effects on upper trophic levels. However, most wrack is often wave-cast to the upper beach, whereas a distinct part of the shore fauna is limited to the ocean fringe of beaches – the ‘swash zone’. This has the potential to create a spatial asymmetry between the location of subsidies (concentrated at the landwards fringe) and the location of some of the putative recipients distributed at the ocean fringe. Here, we tested whether the fauna of the swash zone can benefit from wrack subsidies, by sampling fauna and algal deposits on a range of beaches in NW Spain. We also measured the potential functional link between algal wrack and nutrients released from wrack during decay. Wrack decay increased nutrient concentrations, and it is the combination of wrack cover, nutrient levels, and sediment coarseness that jointly drove variation in the assemblage structure of the swash fauna among beaches. Similarly, the density of the swash fauna and species richness increased markedly at higher nutrient levels and wrack cover. Filter feeders were an important compartment in the food web of the swash macrofauna; we hypothesize that wrack deposits in the upper beach enhance food availability for this trophic guild via increasing nutrients in the water column, stimulating primary production and providing particulate organic matter derived from algal decay. Besides, several polychaetes and peracarid species function as secondary consumers and detritus feeders that plausibly benefit, directly or indirectly, on the particulate organic matter that accumulates on the sediment surface or percolates into the interstitial environment. These findings expand the ‘wrack enhancement’ model to include the promotion of consumers at the ocean edge of sandy shores; it also contains a cross-shore linkage via decomposition processes that favourably change the nutrient regime across all the beach face and thereby couple the swash zone with the upper strandline. 

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3. Small shelly fossils and carbon isotopes from the early Cambrian (Stages 3–4) Mural Formation of western Laurentia

   https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1313  

   Skovsted, Christian B.; Balthasar, Uwe; Vinther, Jakob; Sperling, Erik A.; Álvaro, ed., Javier (June 2020, Papers in Palaeontology)

   Abstract The extraordinary window of phosphatized and phosphatic small shelly fossils (SSF) during the early and middle Cambrian is an important testament to the radiation of biomineralizing metazoans. WhileSSFare well known from most Cambrian palaeocontinents during this time interval, western Laurentia has relatively fewSSFfaunas. Here we describe a diverseSSFfauna from the early Cambrian (Stages 3–4) Mural Formation at three localities in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, complemented by carbon isotope measurements to aid in a potential future bio‐chemostratigraphic framework. The fauna expands the recordedSSFassemblage diversity in western Laurentia and includes several brachiopods, four bradoriids, three chancelloriids, two hyoliths, a tommotiid and a helcionellid mollusc as well as echinoderm ossicles and specimens ofMicrodictyon,VolborthellaandHyolithellus. New taxa include the tommotiid genusCanadiellagen. nov., the new bradoriid speciesHipponicharion perforatasp. nov. andPseudobeyrichona tauratasp. nov. Compared with contemporaneous faunas from western Laurentia, the fauna is relatively diverse, particularly in taxa with originally phosphatic shells, which appear to be associated with archaeocyathid build‐ups. This suggests that the generally low faunal diversity in western Laurentia may be at least partly a consequence of poor sampling of suitable archaeocyathan reef environments. In addition, the tommotiidCanadiella filigranaappears to be of biostratigraphical significance in Cambrian Stage 3 strata of western Laurentia, and the unexpected high diversity of bradoriid arthropods in the fauna also suggests that this group may prove useful for biostratigraphical resolution in the region. 

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4. Modeling the potential distribution of the threatened Grey-necked Picathartes Picathartes oreas across its entire range

   https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270923000175  

   Tsetagho, Guilain; Bradfer-Lawrence, Tom; Taku, Awa II; Abernethy, Katharine A.; Abwe, Ekwoge E.; Tsi Angwafo, E.; Atuo, Fidelis; Fichtler, Martin; Fotso, Roger; Shirley, Matthew H.; et al (January 2023, Bird Conservation International)

   Understanding the distribution and extent of suitable habitats is critical for the conservation of endangered and endemic taxa. Such knowledge is limited for many Central African species, including the rare and globally threatened Grey-necked Picathartes Picathartes oreas, one of only two species in the family Picathartidae endemic to the forests of Central Africa. Despite growing concerns about land-use change resulting in fragmentation and loss of forest cover in the region, neither the extent of suitable habitat nor the potential species’ distribution is well known. We combine 339 (new and historical) occurrence records of Grey-necked Picathartes with environmental variables to model the potential global distribution. We used a Maximum Entropy modelling approach that accounted for sampling bias. Our model suggests that Grey-necked Picathartes distribution is strongly associated with steeper slopes and high levels of forest cover, while bioclimatic, vegetation health, and habitat condition variables were all excluded from the final model. We predicted 17,327 km2 of suitable habitat for the species, of which only 2,490 km2 (14.4%) are within protected areas where conservation designations are strictly enforced. These findings show a smaller global distribution of predicted suitable habitat for the Grey-necked Picathartes than previously thought. This work provides evidence to inform a revision of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List status, and may warrant upgrading the status of the species from “Near Threatened” to “Vulnerable”. 

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5. An elevational gradient in floral traits and pollinator assemblages in the Neotropical species Costus guanaiensis var. Tarmicus in Peru

   https://doi.org/10.7291/D11Q2X  

   Maguiña-Conde, Rossana (January 2022, Dryad)

   Different populations of plant species can adapt to their local pollinators and diverge in floral traits accordingly. Floral traits are subject to pollinator-driven natural selection to enhance plant reproductive success. Studies on temperate plant systems have shown pollinator-driven selection results in floral trait variation along elevational gradients, but studies in tropical systems are lacking. We analyzed floral traits and pollinator assemblages in the Neotropical bee-pollinated taxon Costus guanaiensis var. tarmicus across four sites along a steep elevational gradient in Peru. We found variations in floral traits of size, color, and reward, and in the pollinator assemblage along the elevational gradient. We examined our results considering two hypotheses, (1) local adaptation to different bee assemblages, and (2) the early stages of an evolutionary shift to a new pollinator functional group (hummingbirds). We found some evidence consistent with the adaptation of C. guanaiensis var. tarmicus to the local bee fauna along the studied elevational gradient. Corolla width across sites was associated with bee thorax width of the local most frequent pollinator. However, we could not rule out the possibility of the beginning of a bee-to-hummingbird pollination shift in the highest-studied site. Our study is one of the few geographic-scale analyses of floral trait and pollinator assemblage variation in tropical plant species. Our results broaden our understanding of plant-pollinator interactions beyond temperate systems by showing substantial intraspecific divergence in both floral traits and pollinator assemblages across geographic space in a tropical plant species. 

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