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Working out the Old Libyco-Berber (LB) writings found on the Canary Islands (CI) is a long and painstaking task. Scholars have struggled with their provenance, meaning(s), common and different features with North African cognates, scribal communities, and the assumed time-span. In this review-paper, laying theoretical guiding lines for the understanding of the successive patterns and signs is considered an advantage. Nonetheless, high-staked claims as for the origin and the decipherment of the inscriptions are eluded, with plausible scenarios being offered. While corpus enlargement and qualitative and quantitative methods stand for the correct pursuit of the Libyco-Berber scholarship, multi-disciplinary and coordinated research should gain momentum too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canary Islands are home to a large variety of endemic fauna. The Canary shrew (Crocidura canariensis) has a distribution restricted to Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and the islets of Lobos and Montaña Clara. One of the main threats to the insular fauna is the arrival of exotic species. The greater white-toothed shrew (Crocidura russula) is an easily transportable animal and a potential competitor for C. canariensis. Therefore, C. russula should be taken into account in the management protocols for invasive species. One of the most easily applicable techniques for detecting shrews is the analysis of pellets. This study aims to assess which morphological characters are diagnostic and easy to use when identifying both species of shrews. For this purpose, a blind specific assignment has been made using seven previously described characters and another three added in the present study. The results show that the observer's experience did not improve the correct identification rate and that only three of the evaluated characters have a high discriminant capacity. Finally, it was found that the combined use of the maximum number of characters and the identification by two independent observers reduces the probability of making a mistake in the determination to minimum values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We performed morphological and molecular studies of Laurencia catarinensis from the Canary Islands. This species has an entangled habit, cushion-like tuft formation, cortical cell walls, slightly to markedly projecting near the apex, and lacking lenticular thickenings in medullary cells. We inferred its phylogenetic position by analyzing the chloroplast-encoded rbc L gene sequences from 41 samples. The results demonstrate that specimens of L. catarinensis from the Canary Islands, where it is referred to as L. intricata, and those from Brazil (including specimens from the type locality in Santa Catarina) form a monophyletic clade with low genetic divergence (0-0.9%). In contrast, specimens of L. intricata from the type locality in Cuba, Mexico, and the USA were clearly distinct from L. catarinensis collected in Brazil and the Canary Islands, as shown by high genetic divergence values (4.9-5.7%). The type material of L. catarinensis from Brazil allowed us to identify all samples from the Canarian Archipelago as L. catarinensis. These findings expand the known geographical distribution of L. catarinensis to the eastern Atlantic Ocean and demonstrate an amphi-Atlantic distribution of the species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palisada flagellifera (Ceramiales, Rhodophyta) is recorded for the first time in the eastern Atlantic Ocean off Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma and Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain. The specimens were collected in 2006–2009 growing from the lower intertidal to subtidal zones to 2 m depth at sites exposed to wave action. The species possesses a palisade-like arrangement of cortical cells in cross section, lacks secondary pit connections between them, and has tetrasporangia produced by three fertile pericentral cells (the third and the fourth additional and the second that becomes fertile), and a right-angled arrangement of tetrasporangia. Gametangia were not observed. The phylogenetic relationships were inferred by analyses of the chloroplast-encoded rbcL gene sequences from 46 taxa. The Canarian and Brazilian P. flagellifera specimens formed a highly supported clade with a low level of genetic variation in the rbcL sequences (0.02–0.04%), confirming that they are the same taxonomic entity. This study expands the geographical distribution of P. flagellifera to the eastern Atlantic Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marine red alga Lomentaria benahoarensis sp. nov. from the Canary Islands is described. Plants grow epiphytically on Corallina elongata forming turfs of creeping axes attached by lateral discoid holdfasts and erect axes up to 12 mm high. Erect axes are terete to slightly compressed, 200–300(–1000) μm broad, radially branched up to three orders, with laterals progressively thinner, constricted only at the bases of terminal axes. The cortex is three-layered with the outermost cortical cells arranged in a near-continuous surface layer. Medullary filaments form a loose network of narrow elongate cells, which bear secretory cells. Gametophytes are dioecious with spermatangia formed in continuous spermatangial sori; cystocarps are urceolate and ostiolate. Tetrasporangia are subspherical and formed in depressed rounded sori in slightly swollen regions in the middle of fertile terminal axes. The new species has no single unique feature, but differs from the other Lomentaria species by a distinctive combination of attributes. Closest related species to Lomentaria benahoarensis appear to be L. corallicola, L. gracillima, L. monochlamydea, L. orcadensis, L. rawitscheri, and L. tenerrima. Although all these species have a diminutive, decumbent habit and lack regular constrictions in axes, the number of cortical cell layers and the arrangement of outer cortical cells distinguish them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four species of marine algae are reported from the Canary Islands for the first time. Our report of the western Atlantic Gelidiella setacea (Gelidiales, Rhodophyta) is the first from the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Pseudotetraspora marina (Tetrasporales, Chlorophyta) previously known on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean from temperate saltmarshes only, is now reported growing in the shallow sublittoral zone, the habitat in which tropical western Atlantic populations also occur. The presence of Lomentaria chylocladiella (Rhodymeniales, Rhodophyta) represents the first report in the Atlantic Ocean of a species previously thought to be endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. The record of the widely distributed Acrochaetium hallandicum (Acrochaetiales, Rhodophyta) was not unexpected. Specimens of A. hallandicum have vegetative cells with a single lobate parietal chloroplast with a single pyrenoid, a feature that among acrochaetioid algae occurs exclusively in the genus Colaconema (Colaconematales), and consequently the species is transferred to this genus. Fertile sporophytes are described for Gelidiella setacea, a species previously known only in its vegetative condition. Cruciately to irregularly divided sporangia are regularly arranged in transverse rows in stichidia laterally formed on the axes. The species is transferred to the genus Parviphycus on the basis of the morphology of the stichidia and the distichous pattern of apical division exhibited by the axes, both exclusive features of this genus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenology and spatial-temporal variation patterns during an annual cycle of Sargassum orotavicum from the Canaries have been studied for the first time. Data on morphological variation of general habit, stipes, primary and secondary branches, primary and secondary blades, vesicles and receptacles are presented. Sargassum orotavicum is a pseudoperennial species showing a significant seasonality in most parameters that have been studied. This species has four phases within the year: (1) regeneration, from perennial stipes and holdfasts in late autumn; (2) growth, with the beginning of the development of thallus structures that renew every year, in winter; (3) reproductive, with a vegetative climax prior to the reproductive, in spring; and (4) senescence and degeneration, with detachment of thallus structures that renew yearly, in summer. Biomass of branches, blades, vesicles and receptacles showed a significant seasonal variation, with maximum values in spring and minimum in late summer and autumn. This warm-temperate species exhibited a phenological behaviour intermediate between tropical and cold-temperate species of Sargassum . Analysis of within- and between-individual stability of eleven continuous traits indicated that the highest variation occurred temporally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]