Rapid biodiversity assessment of arthropods for monitoring average local species richness and related ecosystem services

Rapid biodiversity assessment (RBA) is proposed as an affordable indicator for monitoring local species richness of arthropods and sustainability of related ecosystem services. The indicator is based on strictly standardised sampling procedures and the identification of parataxonomic units (morphospecies) instead of species identification. The collection of arthropods was optimized with regard to trap types, time and length of collecting period, selection of four out of seven weekly samples, and choice of counted taxa and trophic guilds. By measuring arthropod activity, RBA is an indicator for functional diversity. Over a period of 8years, average yearly numbers of morphospecies were assessed in Switzerland in 15 agricultural habitats, 15 managed forests, and in 12 unmanaged habitats ranging from protected lowland wetlands to Alpine meadows. The yearly RBA-trend in unmanaged habitats is used for assessing the influence of climate and weather on biodiversity, and as a reference for measuring the relative influences of recent management changes in agriculture and forestry. The average number of morphospecies per sampling station per year depends on temperature, and was only marginally significantly increasing over time in agriculture, but not in forestry or unmanaged areas. Three RBA indices considered to be relevant for maintaining ecosystem services were calculated from the average number of morphospecies per location per year: (1) indicator for ecological resilience and sustainability (all morphospecies); (2) indicator for pollinator diversity (taxa with a majority of pollinators) and (3) indicator for biocontrol diversity (ratio between carnivore and herbivore guilds

Compounds Exuded by \u3cem\u3ePhaseolus vulgaris\u3c/em\u3e That Induce a Modification of \u3cem\u3eRhizobium etli\u3c/em\u3e Lipopolysaccharide

Exudates released from germinating seeds and roots of a black-seeded bean (Phaseolus vulgaris cv. Midnight Black Turtle Soup) induce an antigenic change in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of Rhizobium etli CE3. By spectroscopic analyses and chromatographic comparisons with derived standards, the chemical structures of the aglycone portions of the major inducing molecules from seed exudate were deduced, and they were identified as delphinidin, cyanidin, petunidin, and malvidin. These anthocyanidins were present in seed exudate mainly as glycosides, the chief inducer being delphinidin 3-glucoside. Also present were 3-glucosides of petunidin and malvidin and glycosides of cyanidin and delphinidin. Seed exudate from a bean variety deficient in anthocyanins did not induce the LPS conversion. The ability of root exudate to induce an antigenic change in the LPS was due to compounds other than anthocyanins

Singing from the Grave: DNA from a 180 Year Old Type Specimen Confirms the Identity of Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens)

Copyright: © 2015 Price et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published version of the article

Genetic Locus Required for Antigenic Maturation of \u3cem\u3eRhizobium etli\u3c/em\u3e CE3 Lipopolysaccharide

Rhizobium etli modifies lipopolysaccharide (LPS) structure in response to environmental signals, such as low pH and anthocyanins. These LPS modifications result in the loss of reactivity with certain monoclonal antibodies. The same antibodies fail to recognize previously isolated R. etli mutant strain CE367, even in the absence of such environmental cues. Chemical analysis of the LPS in strain CE367 demonstrated that it lacked the terminal sugar of the wild-type O antigen, 2,3,4-tri-O-methylfucose. A 3-kb stretch of DNA, designated as lpe3, restored wild-type antigenicity when transferred into CE367. From the sequence of this DNA, five open reading frames were postulated. Site-directed mutagenesis and complementation analysis suggested that the genes were organized in at least two transcriptional units, both of which were required for the production of LPS reactive with the diagnostic antibodies. Growth in anthocyanins or at low pH did not alter the specific expression of gusA from the transposon insertion of mutant CE367, nor did the presence of multiple copies of lpe3 situated behind a strong, constitutive promoter prevent epitope changes induced by these environmental cues. Mutations of the lpe genes did not prevent normal nodule development on Phaseolus vulgaris and had very little effect on the occupation of nodules in competition with the wild-type strain

A New Look at Adaptive Body Coloration and Color Change in "Common Green Lacewings” of the Genus Chrysoperla (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae)

Green lacewings in the genus Chrysoperla are not always green. They can be yellow (autosomal recessive mutant); change from whitish-yellow to green as young adults; or temporarily turn yellowish, reddish, or brown during diapause. New findings on a yellow mutant in a natural population in southern California and on species-specific diapause coloration are presented, old findings are reviewed, and the adaptive value of color variability and color change in the genus is discusse

Hotspots and richness pattern of grasshopper species in cultural landscapes

The success of the hotspot approach for biodiversity conservation depends on the spatial scale and the indicator species used. In this study, we investigated grasshopper species richness in Switzerland at a 1ha resolution including a total of 111 species. We compared the representativeness of common and of endangered grasshopper species for the overall grasshopper species richness and we assessed the efficiency of the hotspot approach for grasshopper conservation. The pattern of overall grasshopper species richness was well represented by both the number of common and the number of endangered grasshopper species. For evaluating the efficiency of different hotspot approaches for conservation, we compared hotspots of common species, hotspots of endangered species (rarity hotspots), and hotspots of all grasshopper species (richness hotspots). Among these hotspot types, richness hotspots not only featured most common grasshopper species, but they even contained more endangered species than the rarity hotspots. The combination of rarity hotspots and hotspots of common species featured more species than the other combinations of hotspot types. However, the gain of combining two hotspot types compared to the single-hotspot approach was low (max. 3 species). About 24% of the species were not contained in any of the hotspots. These grasshopper species require species-specific action plans. As rarity hotspots were located in areas that are rather strongly affected by landscape change, species richness in rarity hotspots may decrease in the future. We conclude that, for grasshoppers, the hotspot approach on the 1ha scale can be an effective way to conserve a high proportion of species richnes

Song Analysis Reveals a Permanent Population of the Mediterranean Lacewing Chrysoperla agilis (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) Living in Central Alaska

Chrysoperla agilis Henry et al. (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) is a widespread, nomadic lacewing in the carnea group of cryptic species. C. agilis has previously been found only in the warm parts of Europe, western Asia, and a few oceanic islands. Like others of the carnea group, C. agilis is identifiable only by its unique courtship song. Recently, a population with by the C. agilis song was discovered in central Alaska; based on its persistence over several years and its distribution over a wide area near Fairbanks, it seems to be permanent rather than transitory. To assess the relationship of this Western Hemisphere population to C. agilis in the Eastern Hemisphere, we 1) analyzed its courtship song, comparing it to the Eurasian song; 2) compared larval and adult morphology of Alaskan and Eurasian specimens; 3) inferred phylogenetic relationships of Alaskan and Eurasian specimens, by using sequences from the cox2 gene; and 4) crossed Alaskan with European individuals, raising their progeny and analyzing their "hybrid” songs. Alaskan C. agilis generally fell within the range of variation of Eurasian individuals for all acoustic and morphological traits, and their hybrid progeny were also acoustically indistinguishable. Phylogenetically, and despite current geographical isolation, Alaskan individuals clustered with Eurasian C. agilis rather than with Western Hemisphere taxa of the carnea group. We conclude that the Alaskan population is a bona fide member of C. agilis. Examination of the geographical pattern of song variation suggests that dispersal to Alaska took place quite recently in a west to east direction, via eastern Asia and the Bering Strai

Frequency swept measurements of coherent diffraction patterns

Interference fringes arising from multiple reflections can significantly alter the diffraction patterns of diffractive optical elements. One way to reduce interference effects is by timeintegrating the diffraction pattern while frequency sweeping the laser source. This method is especially useful when it is not possible to remove the cover glass from the observation camera. The use of charge coupled device (CCD) cameras in optical systems, together with a laser light source, is widely applied to a variety of measurements. But coherent imaging can introduce severe alterations of the detected signal due to the unwanted interference of multiple reflections of the beam. These reflections that arise from various optical surfaces in the system, including the cover glass of the CCD chip, ar

Control of Pre-mRNA Splicing by the General Splicing Factors PUF60 and U2AF65

Pre-mRNA splicing is a crucial step in gene expression, and accurate recognition of splice sites is an essential part of this process. Splice sites with weak matches to the consensus sequences are common, though it is not clear how such sites are efficiently utilized. Using an in vitro splicing-complementation approach, we identified PUF60 as a factor that promotes splicing of an intron with a weak 3' splice-site. PUF60 has homology to U2AF(65), a general splicing factor that facilitates 3' splice-site recognition at the early stages of spliceosome assembly. We demonstrate that PUF60 can functionally substitute for U2AF(65)in vitro, but splicing is strongly stimulated by the presence of both proteins. Reduction of either PUF60 or U2AF(65) in cells alters the splicing pattern of endogenous transcripts, consistent with the idea that regulation of PUF60 and U2AF(65) levels can dictate alternative splicing patterns. Our results indicate that recognition of 3' splice sites involves different U2AF-like molecules, and that modulation of these general splicing factors can have profound effects on splicing

Response of arthropod species richness and functional groups to urban habitat structure and management

Urban areas are a particular landscape matrix characterized by a fine-grained spatial arrangement of very diverse habitats (urban mosaic). We investigated arthropods to analyse biodiversity-habitat associations along five environmental gradients (age, impervious area, management, configuration, composition) in three Swiss cities (96 study sites). We considered total species richness and species richness within different functional groups (zoophagous, phytophagous, pollinator, low mobility, and high mobility species). Information theoretical model selection procedures were applied and predictions were calculated based on weighted models. Urban areas yielded on average 284 arthropod species (range: 169-361), with species richness correlating mostly with heterogeneity indices (configuration and composition). Species richness also increased with age of urban settlement, while enlarged proportions of impervious area and intensified habitat management was negatively correlated. Functional groups showed contrasted, specific responses to environmental variables. Overall, we found surprisingly little variation in species richness along the gradients, which is possibly due to the fine-grained spatial interlinkage of good (heterogeneous) and bad (sealed) habitats. The highly fragmented nature of urban areas may not represent a major obstacle for the arthropods currently existing in cities because they have probably been selected for tolerance to fragmentation and for high colonisation potential. Given that built areas are becoming denser, increasing spatial heterogeneity of the urban green offers potential for counteracting the detrimental effects of densification upon urban biodiversity. By quantifying the expected effects along environmental gradients, this study provides guidance for managers to set priorities when enhancing urban arthropod species richnes