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Longhorn beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) is one of the largest, most diverse, ecologically and economically important groups of beetles in the world. In the following paper, through a comprehensive synthesis and review of various sources of data, we have described the general patterns of the distribution of longhorn beetles on the global scale. We found that the vast majority of Cerambycidae diversity is concentrated in two hyper–diverse subfamilies: Lamiinae and Cerambycinae, which together cover 90.5% of all longhorn beetles. Nearly 60% of the global fauna of Cerambycidae is distributed within the Oriental or Neotropical realms. Although the monospecific genera are predominated, most of the taxonomic diversity of longhorn beetles is concentrated on the limited number of large, multi–species genera; only the first 829 richest genera encompass three quarters of the total number of Cerambycidae species. Although the estimated number of described longhorn beetle species (34,490) showed a good agreement with other studies, that figure seems to be far from the actual number, since more than 200 new species are described every year in the recent decade. Most newly–described species originate from Asia and Southern America. The vast majority (88.1%) of the Cerambycidae species were found to be restricted to only one biogeographic realm. The highest number of endemic species can be found in cerambycid fauna of the Australasian, Ethiopian, Madagascan and Neotropical realms. Moreover, our findings highlight the phylogenetic distinctness of the Madagascan fauna of Cerambycidae. More research involving a comprehensive multigene approach is needed to resolve urgent issues regarding both the higher and lower level taxonomy of Cerambycidae and to better understand the factors influencing the distribution and diversification of cerambycids.

Global diversity gradients have been extensively investigated for several biological groups. However, little is known whether the diversity drivers of clades that underwent major environmental transition (e.g., from land to sea) are equivalent across these different environmental settings. Here, we ask if the pattern of diversity of marine elapid snakes is determined by factors analogous to those previously found for terrestrial lineages. Through a model selection framework, we compare the effect of factors that represent five ecological and historical hypotheses. We found that both ecological and historical factors play significant roles, but habitat structure, which can be linked to historical climatic changes, was better supported. This result agrees with that previously found for terrestrial elapids, despite the different environmental pressures in terrestrial and marine contexts. Our findings suggest an equivalence of the underlying process of diversity gradient within the same lineage from land and sea, irrespective of the different physiological, spatial and historical constraints.

Broad-scale assessment of biodiversity is needed for detection of future changes across substantial regions of the Arctic. Presently, there are large data and information gaps in species composition and richness of the freshwater planktonic and meiobenthos communities of the Russian Arctic. Analysis of these data is very important for identifying the spatial distribution and temporal changes in species richness and diversity of rotifers, cladocerans, and copepods in the continental Russian Arctic. We investigated biogeographic patterns of freshwater plankton and meiobenthos fromc. 67 degrees to 73 degrees N by analysing data over the period 1960-2017. These data include information on the composition of rotifers, cladocerans, and copepods obtained from planktonic and meiobenthic samples, as well as from subfossil remains in bottom sediments of seven regions from the Kola Peninsula in the west, to the Indigirka River Basin (east Siberia) in the east. Total richness included 175 species comprised of 49 rotifer genera, 81 species from 40 cladoceran genera, and 101 species from 42 genera of calanoid, cyclopoid, and harpacticoid copepods. Longitudinal trends in rotifer and micro-crustacean diversity were revealed by change in species composition from Europe to eastern Siberia. The most common and widespread species were 19 ubiquitous taxa that includedKellicottia longispina(Rotifera),Chydorus sphaericuss. lat. (Cladocera),Heterocope borealis,Acanthocyclops vernalis, andMoraria duthiei(Copepoda). The highest number of rare species was recorded in the well-studied region of the Bolshezemelskaya tundra and in the Putorana Plateau. The total number of copepod and rotifer species in both Arctic lakes and ponds tended to increase with latitude. Relative species richness of copepods was positively associated with waterbody area, elevation, and precipitation, while relative species richness of cladocerans was positively related to temperature. This result is consistent with known thermophilic characteristics of cladocerans and the cold tolerance properties of copepods, with the former being dominant in shallow, warmer waterbodies of some western regions, and the latter being dominant in large cold lakes and waterbodies of eastern regions. Rotifers showed a negative association with these factors. Alpha- and beta-diversity of zooplankton in the Russian Arctic were strongly related to waterbody type. Lake zooplankton communities were more diverse than those in pond and pool systems. Moreover, the highest beta-diversity values were observed in regions that showed a greater breadth in latitude and highly heterogeneous environmental conditions and waterbody types (Bolshezemelskaya tundra and Putorana Plateau). Redistribution of freshwater micro-fauna caused by human activities occurred in the 1990s and 2000s. As a result of climate warming, a few cladoceran species appear to have extended their range northward. Nevertheless, the rotifer and micro-crustacean fauna composition and diversity of the majority of Arctic regions generally remain temporally conservative, and spatial differences in composition and species richness are chiefly associated with the differences between the warmer European and colder east Siberian climates.

Many cetacean species are at risk from anthropogenic disturbances including climate change, pollution, and habitat degradation. Identifying cetacean hotspots for conservation management is therefore required. Aotearoa–New Zealand waters are used by 53% of the world’s cetacean species and are a global cetacean diversity hotspot. Using geographic predictions of cetacean taxa, we aimed to identify important areas within New Zealand waters using two methods: estimates of cetacean richness and a spatial prioritization analysis. For both methods, we investigated how varying levels of uncertainty in predictions of the taxa’ occurrence layers would affect our interpretation of cetacean hotspots. Despite some marked spatial differences in distribution of important areas for cetacean diversity, both methods, across all uncertainty scenarios, highlighted six distinct deep offshore regions as important habitat. Generally, inshore areas had lower richness estimates than offshore areas, but these remain important for conservation for species with limited ranges (e.g., the endemic Māui and Hector’s dolphins), and in some places had similar richness values to offshore hotspots. Furthermore, inshore hotspots had lower uncertainty in predicted taxa distribution and richness estimates. The use of two different uncertainty estimates allows the integration of distributional information from differing sources (different modeling methods with varying numbers of cetacean records) to be integrated in a robust and conservative way. Identification of cetacean hotspots with varying levels of uncertainty provides a robust and efficient step toward prioritizing areas for conservation management in a participatory process.

Background: Understanding human disease, zoonoses, and emergence is a global priority. Multifactorial aetiologies have been proposed, but mechanistic analyses to quantify the underlying factors are limited. A deep understanding of pathogen ecology and the complex inherent relationships at the agent-environment interface are essential to inform disease control and mitigation, and to predict the next zoonotic pandemic. Methods: We present an analysis of several social and environmental factors associated with human disease, zoonoses, and disease emergence after controlling for research effort. In contrast to previous studies that used emerging infectious disease events, we used human, zoonotic and emerging pathogen diversity. Predictor-response associations were captured by generalised additive models. Research effort was controlled using gross domestic research expenditure and development at the country level. In addition, we used national level data to aid in policy development to inform control and mitigation. Findings: We show that human population density, land area, temperature, and the human development index at the country level are associated with human, emerging and zoonotic pathogen diversity. Multiple models demonstrating society-agent-environment interactions and global maps showing predicted pathogen diversity are presented. Interpretation: Social, environmental, and geographical factors predict global pathogen diversity. Further, our analyses demonstrate that climate change, such as temperature and rainfall, has the potential to influence pathogen diversity.

WOS:000708826500003; Coral reefs are experiencing declines due to climate change and local human impacts. While at a local scale these impacts induce biodiversity loss and shifts in community structure, previous biogeographical analyses recorded consistent taxonomic structure of fish communities across global coral reefs. This suggests that regional communities represent a random subset of the global species and traits pool, whatever their species richness. Using distributional data on 3586 fish species and latest advances in species distribution models, we show marked gradients in the prevalence of size classes and diet categories across the biodiversity gradient. This divergence in trait structure is best explained by reef isolation during past unfavourable climatic conditions, with large and piscivore fishes better represented in isolated areas. These results suggest the risk of a global community re-organization if the ongoing climate-induced reef fragmentation is not halted.

With the biodiversity crisis continuing unchecked, we need to establish levels and drivers of extinction risk, and reassessments over time, to effectively allocate conservation resources and track progress towards global conservation targets. Given that threat appears particularly high in freshwaters, we assessed the extinction risk of 1428 randomly selected freshwater molluscs using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, as part of the Sampled Red List Index project. We show that close to one-third of species in our sample are estimated to be threatened with extinction, with highest levels of threat in the Nearctic, Palearctic and Australasia and among gastropods. Threat levels were higher in lotic than lentic systems. Pollution (chemical and physical) and the modification of natural systems (e.g. through damming and water abstraction) were the most frequently reported threats to freshwater molluscs, with some regional variation. Given that we found little spatial congruence between species richness patterns of freshwater molluscs and other freshwater taxa, apart from crayfish, new additional conservation priority areas emerged from our study. We discuss the implications of our findings for freshwater mollusc conservation, the adequacy of a sampled approach and important next steps to estimate trends in freshwater mollusc extinction risk over time., The authors would like to acknowledge the Esme ́e Fairbairn Foundation (NIDR and MB) and the Rufford Foundation (MB) for their generous support. MV is supported by the Russian Fund for Basic Research (project No. 19-04-00270).

The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is widely attributed to be the result of factors such as time, area, and energy. Although these factors explain most of the variation in lowlands, they fail in mountainous systems, which are biodiversity hotspots that may contribute meaningfully to the strength of the pattern following different evolutionary pathways. However, because lowlands cover the largest portion of the total land, they may have overshadowed the contribution of mountains to the LDG, but no study has addressed this issue in previous macroecological analyses. Here, we propose that the LDG shows a stronger trend in mountain ranges due to their high species turnover, in spite of covering less than one third of the Earth’s land. Using the geographical information for ∼22000 species of terrestrial vertebrates, we show that worldwide mountains harbor the 40% of the global diversity, and when taking into account the area effect, we quantified that mountains harbor close to double the species inhabiting lowlands per unit area. Moreover, when we evaluated the LDG after accounting for area size, we found that species richness increased faster towards the Equator and was better predicted by latitude in mountains than in lowlands. Our findings challenge previously well-supported hypotheses that predict that those regions with greater area, time and energy accumulate more species richness, since mountains are geologically younger, exhibit less energy, and cover smaller areas than lowlands. Hence, mountains represent a paradox, which invites to reevaluate hypotheses regarding macroecological and evolutionary processes driving species diversity gradients.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.View Full Text

A new genus and new species of caprellid, Parapseudaeginella n. gen., and Parapseudaeginella australiensis n. sp., is described from shallow water of Ningaloo Reef, south of Tantabiddy, reef front, Western Australia. The new genus is very similar to Pseudaeginella Mayer, 1890, but can be easily distinguished by the pereonites 6 and 7 being clearly fused (separated in Pseudaeginella) and by the absence of a pair of proximal grasping spines on the propodus of pereopods 5-7 (present in Pseudaeginella). The new species is characterised by acute dorsal projections on head, pereonite 1 and 2, and acute lateral projections near the coxa of gnathopod 2 in males. The new taxon has probably been overlooked in the past due to its tiny size. Further efforts to sample and describe the smaller caprellids is needed to fully understand the global diversity and relationships of caprellids.

The Caucasus is an important global diversity hotspot and hosts a wide variety of surface water features, including major transboundary wetlands, in addition to large areas with irrigated agriculture and newly developed fishponds. In this study, we aim to establish the best performing methodology to produce surface water maps with a high degree of accuracy in the Caucasus. We evaluate optical data from Landsat 8 in both the dry and wet season for three study areas in the Caucasus. We test the performance of four different optical water indices derived from Landsat data, a method by Zou et al. (2017) also applied to Landsat data, and the European Commission Joint Research Centre (ECJRC) Global Surface Water dataset. We evaluate the performance of each water index using 5744 land cover validation/training points over all three study areas, which we manually classified by evaluating imagery from Google Earth. Using all validation points from all three study areas and both the wet and dry season, we find that the application of a logistic regression model using an optical surface water index (MNDWI) resulted in the most accurate open surface water maps. This approach achieved an overall accuracy of 93.0%, which is better than was found for freely available global surface water products.

Based on samples collected from two mountain lakes named as Lacs Paponoun located in the Cameroon Highlands (Africa), an assemblage of chrysophycean stomatocysts was investigated using scanning electron microscopy. Twenty stomatocysts are reported and described following the guidelines of the International Statospore Working Group (ISWG). Eleven cysts are described as new morphotypes. The present study documents the largest assemblage of chrysophycean stomatocysts from the recent sediments in tropical Africa detected so far. Additionally, it provides new data on global diversity of chrysophycean stomatocysts.

How many parasites are there on Earth? Here, we use helminth parasites to highlight how little is known about parasite diversity, and how insufficient our current approach will be to describe the full scope of life on Earth. Using the largest database of host-parasite associations and one of the world’s largest parasite collections, we estimate a global total of roughly 100,000 to 350,000 species of helminth endoparasites of vertebrates, of which 85% to 95% are unknown to science. The parasites of amphibians and reptiles remain the most poorly described, but the majority of undescribed species are likely parasites of birds and bony fish. Missing species are disproportionately likely to be smaller parasites of smaller hosts in undersampled countries–species that have mostly been understudied over the last century. At current rates, it would take centuries to comprehensively sample, collect, and name vertebrate helminths. While some have suggested that macroecology can work around existing data limitations, we argue that patterns described from a small, biased sample of diversity aren’t necessarily reliable, especially as host-parasite networks are increasingly altered by global change. In the spirit of moonshots like the Human Genome Project and the Global Virome Project, we propose a global effort to transform parasitology and describe as much of global parasite diversity as possible. Significance Statement Roughly one in ten parasitic worms has been described by taxonomists, while the majority of species remain unknown to science. Data deficiencies are especially severe for some major groups (reptiles and amphibians) and regions (Africa and Southeast Asia). Decades of work have resulted in much larger datasets on host-parasite interactions, but their utility is limited by major data gaps. At current rates, those gaps could take hundreds of years to be filled. We propose that a globally-coordinated project could dramatically speed up this process, playing a critical role in tracking the disease impacts of global change. If successful, it could be a transformative opportunity for multilateral capacity building, and a path towards more equitable research benefit sharing.

The major challenge of our generation is breaking down global divides, especially as these relate to inequities of wealth, power, and access to knowledge. Related to this is the impact of globalization on cultural diversity. Using the example of the World Archaeological Congress as a case study, this paper explores how scholarly organizations can impact upon, and be impacted by, these divides. This study identifies measures that narrow the gap between richer and poorer and which enhance global diversity, as well as measures that act in a converse direction. Finally, this paper identifies challenges for the future of archaeology that arise from this discussion.

18 páginas, 6 figuras, 1 tabla., The deficiency in the distributional data of invertebrate taxa is one of the major impediments acting on the bias towards the low awareness of its conservation status. The present study sets a basic framework to understand the large branchiopods distribution in the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands. Since the extensive surveys performed in the late 1980s, no more studies existed updating the information for the whole studied area. The present study fills the gap, gathering together all available information on large branchiopods distribution since 1995, and analysing the effect of human population density and several landscape characteristics on their distribution, taking into consideration different spatial scales (100 m, 1 km and 10 km). In overall, 28 large branchiopod taxa (17 anostracans, 7 notostracans and 4 spinicaudatans) are known to occur in the area. Approximately 30% of the sites hosted multiple species, with a maximum of 6 species. Significant positive co-occurring species pairs were found clustered together, forming 4 different associations of large branchiopod species. In general, species clustered in the same group showed similar responses to analysed landscape characteristics, usually showing a better fit at higher spatial scales., MF is supported by a grant from the Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientı´fico e Tecnolo´gico—CNPq (401045/ 2014-5), program Cieˆncia sem Fronteiras. DC-M held a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (FPU014/06783).

This is a review of the book "Global diversity and ecological functions of parasites of euphausiids Gómez-Gutiérrez, J., Kawaguchi, S., Morales-Ávila, J.R. Springer (2017)"

The global diversity of free-living (non-parasitic) copepods is estimated to be around 2814 freshwater species out of around 11,500 morphospecies mostly found in marine environments (Humes 1994; Balian et al. 2008). These authors estimated the presence of 1204 species in the Palearctic area. The European part consists of around 25 % of the Palearctic area and the 158 copepod species described here in our key make up slightly less than 15 % of the total number of species estimated for the Palearctic, including both surface and subsurface species.

Despite their restricted distribution, tropical rainforests support a large proportion of the total global diversity of plants and animals, store much of the terrestrial carbon pool, and are currently a large sink for carbon dioxide. The potential impacts of climate change on their biodiversity and carbon cycling are thus of global concern. Tropical rainforests persisted through natural climate variation in the past, but these changes were slower and temperatures generally cooler than projected for later this century. Moreover, rainforests today are fragmented, making it difficult for species to move in response to climate change. Projections for this century include warming by at least 2°C and less predictable changes in rainfall. Likely impacts on tropical rainforests are currently unclear, with predictions ranging from little change to widespread dieback and biodiversity loss. Minimizing other stresses and maximizing connectivity may help rainforests adapt, but reducing fossil fuel emissions is the only long-term solution.

Grasslands have always experienced drought, but future drought conditions are likely to be more severe and frequent as climates change. This study shows that many of the world’s grasslands probably have drought-tolerant grasses that can maintain ecosystem functions, and the resilience of grasslands globally requires the maintenance of grass diversity.

Summary A primary prerequisite for the preservation of global diversity is often assumed to be a high level of naturalness. This paper reports a synthesis of naturalness definitions, distinctions between the concepts of naturalness and of hemeroby and an analysis of different naturalness assessment approaches. Naturalness may be commonly defined as ‘the similarity of a current ecosystem state to its natural state’. Hemeroby, a concept related to human impacts, is often associated with naturalness but, in principle, the two concepts are not inversely related. The hemeroby concept defines narrow assessment classes for greater hemeroby, whereas the naturalness concept defines narrow assessment classes for great naturalness. The rapidly increasing number of forest naturalness papers relies on the following main indicators in decreasing order of use: tree species, forest structure, fauna, ground vegetation and deadwood. A review of the literature on forest naturalness suggests four main reasons for the lack of a widely accepted approach for assessing naturalness: (1) the lack of a commonly accepted reference concept, (2) an incomplete list of essential naturalness traits, (3) unknown linkages between some naturalness traits and biodiversity and (4) the lack of an assessment approach that can be adapted for use at both regional and large scales. Following review of the literature on forest naturalness, a seven-level framework is presented to guide development of naturalness assessment approaches as a component of forest biodiversity monitoring and conservation management.

Research utilizing equality and diversity benchmarks and indices -- such the UN Gender Inequality Index or SHRM Global Diversity Readiness Index -- has been scarce, although it has the potential to...

Recent discoveries of diverse iguanodonts throughout the Cedar Mountain Formation (Utah, USA) have led us to assess the global diversity of Early Cretaceous iguanodonts. The record in England is more diverse than previously recognized due to Iguanodon being a wastebasket genus throughout the Twentieth Century. Several new taxa, previously recognized as generically distinct by Harry Grovier Seeley, are named. The spatial and temporal distributions of iguanodonts are plotted on global maps as a key to understanding the origin of the Cedar Mountain Formation iguanodonts.

Despite considerable increased pesticide use over the past decades, little research has been done into their fate and effects in surface waters in tropical regions. In the present review, possible differences in response between temperate and tropical freshwaters to pesticide stress are discussed. Three underlying mechanisms for these differences are distinguished: (1) climate related parameters, (2) ecosystem sensitivity, and (3) agricultural practices. Pesticide dissipation rates and vulnerability of freshwaters appear not to be consistently higher or lower in tropical regions compared to their temperate counterparts. However, differences in fate and effects may occur for individual pesticides and taxa. Furthermore, intensive agricultural practices in tropical countries lead to a higher input of pesticides and spread of contamination over watersheds. Field studies in tropical farms on pesticide fate in the enclosed and surrounding waterways are recommended, which should ultimately lead to the development of surface water scenarios for tropical countries like developed by the Forum for the co-ordination of pesticide fate models and their use for temperate regions. Future tropical effect assessment studies should evaluate whether specific tropical taxa, not represented by the current standard test species in use, are at risk. If so, tropical model ecosystem studies evaluating pesticide concentration ranges need to be conducted to validate whether selected surrogate indigenous test species are representative for local tropical freshwater ecosystems.

Among the 10,000 birds species living on earth, 5% (e.g., 560) need imperatively freshwater habitat in order to satisfy at least one of their life history traits. About 11 completed families could even disappear if their wetland habitat left. About 10% (58) of these can be considered as endemic. Africa contains the biggest number of endemic (20) and more precisely Madagascar. Among freshwater species, ducks and geese have a major importance in human activities in northern hemisphere related to food resources (hunting) or birding.

This paper considers global diversity management in relation to migration from Africa, specifically Nigeria, of doctors to the UK and the USA. It seeks to demonstrate the importance of global diversity strategies for African countries, often driven by ethnic tensions. It argues that these tensions play their part in the decisions to migrate. It also brings in the triadic relationships to global diversity analysis and demonstrates that diasporic professional groups play often hidden roles in the diversity structures of the destination country and provide important means of connecting with their country of origin.

Author(s): Feeley, Kenneth J; Silman, Miles R; Duque, Alvaro | Abstract: Tropical plant species are systematically underrepresented in large-scale analyses or synthesis looking at the potential effects of global climate change. The reason being that we simply don’t know enough about the distributions and ecologies of most tropical plant species to predict their fate under climate change. This gaping hole in our knowledge is extremely worrisome given the high diversity of tropical plants, the crucial roles that they play in supporting global diversity and ecosystem function, and the elevated threats that climate change may pose to tropical species in general.

The infraorder Nepomorpha is one of the most specialized groups of heteropterans, with most of its species spending the entire life cycle within the water. True water bugs include ten families, 52 genera, and approximately 730 species in the Neotropical region, which shelters about 30 % of the global diversity of the group. Despite this fact, little is known about their biology, ecology, and geographical distribution in the Neotropics. Several genera need to be revised and many species remain with outdated descriptions. The systematics of the infraorder, although has received little attention in recent years, remains with various unresolved questions, and no phylogenetic study was conducted for any endemic group of this region.

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the diversity patterns of Cactaceae at a global scale, to identify those countries where conservation actions should be performed. In order to do this, the species richness and the number of endemic species for 34 American countries were determined. With these data, the relationship between the total number of species or the number of endemic species and the area of the countries were analyzed. In addition, a complementarity analysis was conducted to determine the most important countries for cactus conservation. Results showed that Mexico had the highest number of total and endemic species followed by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru, among others. There was a significant positive relationship between both, the total and endemic species, and the area of the countries. Despite this fact, the cactus diversity in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Costa Rica was higher than expected according to their area. Further, these countries also presented the highest proportions of endemic species. The complementarity analysis indicated that 24 countries are necessary to preserve all cactus species. However, 94% of all species could be preserved with only 10 countries. Considering the diversity patterns and the complementarity analysis, three important groups for cactus conservation were identified: (1) Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Costa Rica, (2) Paraguay and Cuba, and (3) Brazil and USA. Conservation efforts should be focused on these countries in order to preserve cactus diversity.

Long-term diversity equilibria, ecological incumbency, and widespread recurrent fossil assemblages have each been cited as evidence that local processes, such as competition, played an important role in structuring communities over geologic time. We analyze the relationship between local and regional diversity in tropical marine communities spanning approximately 13 Myr of the Late Ordovician to test for the role of local processes in structuring local communities. We find a significant and strong positive relationship between local and regional diversity, indicating that local communities were not saturated with species and that local processes did not exert a dominant influence on local diversity. Rather, local diversity was influenced more by regional oceanographic processes that governed the size of the regional species pool. This evidence for unsaturated communities is consistent with the Walker and Valentine hierarchically structured niche model of global diversification. These results come at the beginning of the 200-Myr Paleozoic plateau in both local and global diversity and therefore raise the question whether local communities were ever saturated with species during the Paleozoic. Similar studies need to be conducted during other times in the Paleozoic to determine if this is indeed the case.

The global diversity of airborne bacteria has not yet been studied, despite its importance in human health and climate change. Here, we focused on the diversity of airborne bacteria and their correlations with meteorological/environmental conditions in China, South Korea, and Japan. Beijing (China) had more diverse airborne bacteria, followed by Seoul (South Korea) and Nagasaki (Japan), and seasonal variations were observed. Beijing and Seoul had more diverse airborne bacteria during the winter, whereas Nagasaki showed greater diversity during the summer. According to principal component analysis and Bray-Curtis similarity, higher similarity was observed between Beijing and Seoul than between Seoul and Nagasaki during all seasons except summer. Among meteorological/environmental variables, temperature and humidity were highly correlated with the diversity of airborne bacteria on the measurement day, whereas wind speeds and the frequency of northwest winds were highly correlated for 2–3-day moving averages. Thus, proximity and resuspension could enhance bacterial diversity in East Asian cities.

Spiders are one of the more diverse arthropod taxa, ranking seventh in global diversity, which makes them a fascinating group to study. The correct identification of many spider species is considered problematic due to complex variation in morphology. The Egyptian spider fauna are incompletely revised due to plenary studies on this group in Egypt from different localities. Samples of spiders were collected during 6 months (from 20/2/2016 till 2O/8/2016) from six different sites represented AL-Gharbia Province (30.881°N, 31.06°E) which is located in the north of the Arab Republic of Egypt about 90 km north of Cairo, and 120 km south east of Alexandria. Sampling of spiders using hand picking, sweep net and pitfall trap methods revealed total 157 specimens. A proposed key was designed to facilitate identification of the collected families, genera and species using their taxonomic characteristics of each. The present study results showed that, list of total 15 families, 19 genera and 15 species were recorded.

Costa Rica is a country whose geographical location plays an important role as a filter for species from North y South-America resulting in the establishment a great diversity of species. In Costa Rica there have been registered a total of 245 species of mammals of the 4,381 registered worldwide, having the 5.6% of global diversity. From the 245 species, only 48 species are considered as medium-sized mammals. In this study we evaluated the richness and the abundance of medium-sized mammals of the Tirimbina Biological Reserve through trapping, making diurnal and nocturnal walks and looking for footprints. There was a richness of 17 species of medium-sized mammals, where the most abundant species were raccoons ( Procyon lotor ) y opossums ( Didelphis marsupialis ). Key words: Conservation, Costa Rica, Habitat fragmentation, Raccoon, Traps.

The global diversity is changing at an unprecedented rate as complex response to several human induced perturbations in the environment. Though many of the microorganisms, the earliest forms of life on earth, have been commercially exploited, our knowledge of their diversity and key roles in sustaining global life supporting systems is limited. The microbial population in a body of natural water, to a large extent is determined by the physical and chemical condition, which prevails in that habitat. The discharge of domestic sewage and industrial effluents are the main sources of river water pollution that propagates the pathogens especially the enteropathogenic microbial populations. River Narmada holds the life line of central India. The most prevalent mechanism of dispersion being the oral-fecal route. The emergence and persistence of multidrug resistant pathogens in the aquatic gene pool of river Narmada posses a catastrophic situation for all forms of life and humans in special. The study of genetic diversity of pathogens helps in better implementation of public health intervention strategies and provides a better insight for understanding evolution, taxonomy, and pathogenecity. Such an enterprise is useful for rational development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

The “fact” that biological diversity—biodiversity—is declining and that humanity is ultimately responsible has become common knowledge among scientists, citizens, and policymakers. Biodiversity loss is the mantra for conservation; we are exhausting biodiversity on the planet at a far greater rate than it can replenish itself (1). Furthermore, these losses could greatly reduce the benefits (ecosystem services) that humans obtain from nature, such as the pollination of crops, absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and provision of wild foods (2). However, is biodiversity truly declining? Remarkably, Vellend et al. (3) report that, on average, the local diversity of plants has not decreased in recent decades. If anything, it has increased.

11 páginas, 2 figuras, 3 tablas., Because pathogens are powerful selective agents, host-cell surface molecules used by pathogens as identification signals can reveal the signature of selection. Most of them are oligosaccharides, synthesized by glycosyltransferases. One known example is balancing selection shaping ABO evolution as a consequence of both, A and B antigens being recognized as receptors by some pathogens, and anti-A and/or anti-B natural antibodies produced by hosts conferring protection against the numerous infectious agents expressing A and B motifs. These antigens can also be found in tissues other than blood if there is activity of another enzyme, FUT2, a fucosyltransferase responsible for ABO biosynthesis in body fluids. Homozygotes for null variants at this locus present the nonsecretor phenotype (se), because they cannot express ABO antigens in secretions. Multiple independent mutations have been shown to be responsible for the nonsecretor phenotype, which is coexisting with the secretor phenotype in most populations. In this study, we have resequenced the coding region of FUT2 in 732 individuals from 39 worldwide human populations. We report a complex pattern of natural selection acting on the gene. Although frequencies of secretor and nonsecretor phenotypes are similar in different populations, the point mutations at the base of the phenotypes are different, with some variants showing a long history of balancing selection among Eurasian and African populations, and one recent variant showing a fast spread in East Asia, likely due to positive selection. Thus, a convergent phenotype composition has been achieved through different mutations with different evolutionary histories., This research was funded by grants BFU2005-00243 and SAF-2007-63171 awarded by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) and by the Direcció General de Recerca of Generalitat de Catalunya (Grup de Recerca Consolidat 2005SGR/00608). Funds were also from the Etablissement Francxais du Sang (EFS) Centre Atlantique, and fromthe Ministère Francxais de la Recherche (EA3034). All the sequencing was done at the Genomic Service, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; we thank Stéphanie Plaza and Roger Anglada for their help. Computational analysis was helped by the National Institute for Bioinformatics (www.inab.org), and SNP genotyping services were provided by the Spanish ‘‘Centro Nacional de Genotipado’’ (CEGEN; www.cegen.org); both are platforms of Genoma Espan˜a. A.F.-A. is supported by a PhDfellowship from UPF and M.S. from the Programa de becas FPU del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain (AP2005-3982).

Hard-bottom communities are distributed worldwide, particularly in shallow and exposed marine systems. Due to their fast growth and their capacity to settle on artificial surfaces, these assemblages represent a suitable study system for ecologists and are therefore often used to investigate ecological models. One wexample of a well-recognized macro-ecological pattern is the ‘latitudinal gradient of species richness’. This concept is the oldest paradigm about a large-scale ecological pattern and simply states that the tropical regions are richer in species than are temperate and polar regions at higher latitudes. To better understand latitudinal effects on the diversity of hard-bottom communities, in this chapter I report on two assessments of global diversity patterns in these assemblages which have the rare quality of representing globally replicated observations yielding data of comparable format and resolution. I further review a meta-analytical comparison on global patterns in benthic marine algae.

Tedersoo et al . (Research Article, 28 November 2014, p. 1078) present a compelling study regarding patterns of biodiversity of fungi, carried out at a scale unprecedented to date for fungal biogeographical studies. The study demonstrates strong global biogeographic patterns in richness and community composition of soil fungi. What concerns us with the study is what we do not see. Unfortunately, this study underestimates the fungal diversity of one key group of soil fungi due to reliance on a single primer with known flaws.