Bombyllidae (insecta: diptera) de quilamula en el área de reserva sierra de Huautla, Morelos, México

Mexico is a diversity center for Bombyliidae, the seventh most diverse family within Diptera. Bombilids are important because some species are pollinators and other are parasotoids so they control other insect populations and have potential for being used for plague control. This study pretends to describe the diversity of Bombyliidae in Quilamula, Morelos, located in the reserve Sierra de Huautla. The field work was made during twelve months between 2003 and 2004, using aerial net and Malaise trap. Methods for species richness estimation were applied, like species accumulation curves and non-parametric models. Ninety seven species were captured from which five are new registers for Mexico and twelve new for Morelos. Clench’s is the species accumulation model which best fits to the data, over exponential and logarithmic models. Clench model estimates 113 species in the study area, from which it was collected the 85.7%. The non-parametric models ICE, ACE, and Chao2 subestimates diversity and Jack-Knife 2 gives and estimate close to the Clench model estimate. ICE and Chao2 are the non-parametric models which best perform. The species richness is greater in rainy season with the maximum in October, although abundance is greater in dry season with the maximum in March. Temporal distribution and habitat preference of species agrees with parasitoids and flower-loving habits of Bombyliidae. Some behaviors observed during the field work are described, in particular what appears to be territorial and mate behaviors. An illustrated key for the genera and some species founded are presented. The study area is recognized as a diversity center for Bombyliidae.México es un centro de diversidad para Bombyliidae, la séptima familia más diversa dentro del orden Diptera. Los bombílidos son importantes porque algunas especies son polinizadoras y otras controlan las poblaciones de otros insectos al ser parasitoides, por lo que tienen potencial para utilizarse en el control de plagas. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo describir la diversidad de esta familia en Quilamula, Morelos, localidad ubicada en la reserva Sierra de Huautla. Se recolectó durante 12 meses entre los años 2003 y 2004, utilizando red aérea y trampa Malaise. Se emplearon métodos de estimación de riqueza de especies, como curvas de acumulación de especies y modelos no paramétricos. Se encontraron 97 especies de las cuales cinco son registros nuevos para México y 12 nuevos para Morelos. El modelo de acumulación de especies que mejor se ajusta a los datos es el de Clench, sobre el exponencial y logarítmico. Éste modelo estima 113 especies en el área de estudio, de los cuales se capturó un 85.7%. Los modelos no paramétricos ICE, ACE y Chao2 subestiman la diversidad y Jack-Knife de segundo orden da un estimado cercano a del modelo de Clench. ICE y Chao2 son los estimadores no paramétricos que mejor se comportan. La riqueza de especies es mayor en época de lluvias y presenta su máximo en octubre sin embargo la abundancia es mayor en época de secas alcanzando un máximo en marzo. La distribución temporal y preferencia de hábitat de las especies concuerda con los hábitos parasitoides y antófilos de Bombyliidae. Se describen algunas conductas observadas durante el trabajo de campo, entre ellas lo que parece ser un comportamiento territorial y otro de apareamiento. Se presenta un clave para la identificación, ilustrada con figuras e imágenes fotográficas, para los géneros y algunas de las especies encontradas. Se encontró que el área de estudio es un sitio de alta diversidad para Bombyliidae

Evidence of spatial clustering of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia cases in Greater Mexico City: report from the Mexican Inter-Institutional Group for the identification of the causes of childhood leukemia

BackgroundA heterogeneous geographic distribution of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cases has been described, possibly, related to the presence of different environmental factors. The aim of the present study was to explore the geographical distribution of childhood ALL cases in Greater Mexico City (GMC).MethodsA population-based case-control study was conducted. Children <18 years old, newly diagnosed with ALL and residents of GMC were included. Controls were patients without leukemia recruited from second-level public hospitals, frequency-matched by sex, age, and health institution with the cases. The residence address where the patients lived during the last year before diagnosis (cases) or the interview (controls) was used for geolocation. Kulldorff’s spatial scan statistic was used to detect spatial clusters (SCs). Relative risks (RR), associated p-value and number of cases included for each cluster were obtained.ResultsA total of 1054 cases with ALL were analyzed. Of these, 408 (38.7%) were distributed across eight SCs detected. A relative risk of 1.61 (p<0.0001) was observed for the main cluster. Similar results were noted for the remaining seven ones. Additionally, a proximity between SCs, electrical installations and petrochemical facilities was observed.ConclusionsThe identification of SCs in certain regions of GMC suggest the possible role of environmental factors in the etiology of childhood ALL

Walkeromyia plumipes Philippi 1873

Walkeromyia plumipes (Philippi, 1873) (Figs. 1–3) Anthrax plumipes Phillippi, 1873: 307. Type locality: Argentina, Mendoza. Type lost in MNNC. Redescription. Male (Fig. 1 a–c). Body length: 13–16 mm; wing length: 14–15 mm. Head: Eyes separated by twice the width of ocellar triangle. Frons with black pile and black tomentum. Face brown, rounded, with black hairs and black tomentum, some whitish pile near oral cavity. Scape brown, rectangular, with black hairs at apex, three times as long as pedicel; pedicel brown, twice as wide as long, bare; flagellomere brown, as long as scape and pedicel combined; conical, slightly flattened; stylus minute, terminal. Proboscis short, not projecting beyond oral margin. Palpi fulvous, reduced, with black hairs. Occiput with short white hairs and black scales. Thorax: Anterior margin of mesonotum with white pile, with scattered black hairs; tomentum on disc entirely black, with scattered white scales; longer white scales on posterior margin, near scutellum; black bristles on postalar corners. Mesopleuron with black pile, not tomentose. Proepimeron with white hairs on anterior half and black hairs on posterior half. Coxae with black pile, not tomentose. Legs fulvous, tarsi yellow, fore and mid femora black with short black scales, hind leg with a band of long flattened black scales covering the whole leg; bristles black. Halter steam brown, knob fulvous. Scutellum brown, with black tomentum; bristles black. Setulae on basicosta fulvous with black tips. Wing brownish darker along veins, cell centers hyaline or fainted pigmented (Fig. 1 c); r-m cross-vein behind middle of cell dm; no cross-vein between R 4 and R 2 + 3; cell r 5 slightly narrowed towards wing margin; vein CuA 1 with first and second sections each twice the length of r-m cross-vein, third section as long as two first sections combined; cell a as wide as cell cup; alula well developed. Abdomen: Dorsum with black pile on center of tergite one, except white hair on sides of tergite one, remainder with black pile; black tomentum with some white scales laterally on tergite six. Venter with black pile, not tomentose. Genitalia brown with black hairs; epandrium in lateral view, trapezoid, dorsal portion wider, cercus well exposed, epandrium subtriangular in dorsal view (Fig. 2 a), posterior tip rounded, anterior corners elongated forward; gonocoxite in lateral view wider at middle with anterior hooked extension and posterior narrow tip; gonocoxite in ventral view (Fig. 2 b) distinctly subquadrate, narrowing apically, anterior corners extending forward, medially divided; gonostylus with a basal process narrowing toward tip, tip slightly hooked in ventral view; epiphallus in lateral view slightly curved (Fig. 2 c), apex swollen, hooked antero-dorsally; epiphallus in ventral view medially divided (Fig. 2 d), united only in apical third, basal half separated in two, wide at base narrowing toward apex, swollen near tip; aedeagus spine-like, slightly longer than epiphallus; gonopore terminal. Pupal stage (Figs. 1 d): Integument of pupa yellowish hyaline with yellow setae and reddish brown blacktipped tubercles. Cephalic tubercles formed almost in straight line, medial tubercle situated slightly outside line between apices of anterior and posterior tubercles and closer to posterior tubercle. Tubercles broad basally, tapering to sharp apex, with sharp ventrolateral and dorsolateral ridges. Posterior tubercle short. Anterior facial tubercles compressed anteroposteriorly, connected by mesal ridge, with acute lateral apices. With a row of long curved bristles at the junction of the thorax and abdomen. Abdominal tergites two to six with a dorsal row of strong spines adhering to the cuticle except at their tips, tergite seven with a row of simple smaller spines, tergite eight without spines dorsally; sides of segments two to seven with a row of six wide, long flattened outgrowths, four in pleurites, two on sides of sternites. Anal tubercles about four times longer than medial width of one lobe, separated, broad basally, tapering to sharp apex, sclerotized at tip, slightly swollen dorsally before apex. Female. Not collected in this study. Material examined. ARGENTINA. 13, Buenos Aires, La Plata (34 ° 53 'S 50 °01'W, 12 mts), II- 2009, L. Álvarez; 23 and pupal case, Santiago del Estero, Dpto. Atamisqui (28 ° 38 ' 54 ''S 64 °04' 58 ''W, 120 mts), 21 -III- 2009, M. Lucia & L. Álvarez. All in the nests of X. splendidula. Host. Xylocopa (Schonnherria) splendidula Lepeletier. Distribution. Argentina: Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Santiago del Estero provinces. Biological observations. The larva of W. plumipes developed in a cell of a nest of Xylocopa splendidula built in the dead culms of Arundo donax L. The sequence of images in figure 3 a shows the development of a larva located in the right-hand cell that corresponds to the parasitoid, we assume that it is the final non-feeding larval stage. There are two pre-pupal stages of the Xylocopa splendidula in the remaining cells and located to the left near the entrance of the nest is the last empty cell. Figures 3 b–c show the beginning of the pupation of the larval bee and parasitoid bee fly. The following images (Fig. 3. d–i) show the development of the pupal stage of bees and parasitoid fly. On the last pre-emergence day, the bee fly pupa was observed to move to the nest entrance for adult emergence. The last image (Fig 3 j) shows the emergence of the adult W. plumipes bee fly and the two remaining bees with their still-in-progress cycle. The two adults of carpenter bees were males. The observation of the pupal stage of the parasitoid lasted 28 days. This clearly shows the unsynchronized development of the adult parasitoid with emergence prior to that of unparasitized bees.Published as part of Ávalos-Hernández, Omar, Lucia, Mariano, Álvarez, Leopoldo J. & Abrahamovich, Alberto H., 2011, Walkeromya plumipes (Philippi) (Diptera: Bombyliidae), a parasitoid associated with carpenter bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Xylocopini) in Argentina, pp. 41-46 in Zootaxa 2935 on pages 42-45, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20653

Emesis planeca n. comb. (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae): a new combination revealed by molecular evidence with a description of its morphological variation

Trujano-Ortega, Marysol, Callaghan, Curtis J., García-Vázquez, Uri Omar, Luis-Martínez, Armando, Ávalos-Hernández, Omar, Llorente-Bousquets, Jorge (2020): Emesis planeca n. comb. (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae): a new combination revealed by molecular evidence with a description of its morphological variation. Zootaxa 4853 (2): 218-234, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4853.2.

Challenges for organismic taxonomical revisions in the age of phylogenomics: A response to Zhang et al. (2019)

Trujano-Ortega, Marysol, Ávalos-Hernández, Omar, Callaghan, Curtis J., García-Vázquez, Uri Omar, Luis-Martínez, Armando, Llorente-Bousquets, Jorge (2020): Challenges for organismic taxonomical revisions in the age of phylogenomics: A response to Zhang et al. (2019). Zootaxa 4838 (3): 436-440, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4838.3.

Table_1_Evidence of spatial clustering of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia cases in Greater Mexico City: report from the Mexican Inter-Institutional Group for the identification of the causes of childhood leukemia.xlsx

BackgroundA heterogeneous geographic distribution of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cases has been described, possibly, related to the presence of different environmental factors. The aim of the present study was to explore the geographical distribution of childhood ALL cases in Greater Mexico City (GMC).MethodsA population-based case-control study was conducted. Children ResultsA total of 1054 cases with ALL were analyzed. Of these, 408 (38.7%) were distributed across eight SCs detected. A relative risk of 1.61 (pConclusionsThe identification of SCs in certain regions of GMC suggest the possible role of environmental factors in the etiology of childhood ALL.</p