Spiders in caves: the CAWEB project

World experts of different disciplines, from molecular biology to macroecology, recognize the value of cave ecosystems as ideal ecological and evolutionary laboratories. Among other subterranean taxa, spiders stand out as intriguing model organisms for their ecological role of top-predators, their unique adaptations to the hypogean medium and their sensitivity to anthropogenic disturbance. Here, we provide a general overview of the spider families recorded in hypogean habitats in Europe–20 families including nearly 500 species, most of them with restricted distributions. We also review the different adaptations of hypogean spiders to subterranean life and summarize the information gathered so far about their origin, population structure, ecology and conservation status. Taxonomic knowledge on subterranean spiders in Europe appears to be well, but not exhaustively documented. The origin of the European assemblages is mostly explained by past climate dynamics, although other factors are likely to be involved. Most of the macroecological issues related to spiders in European caves are based on qualitative assessments or have been quantified only at a sub-regional scale. In order to shed light on cave spiders’ biogeography and the macroecological patterns driving the diversity of European subterranean spiders we created the CAWEB network, a spontaneous collaboration between subterranean arachnologists from 30 different European countries. We here present the team and provide some preliminary results, which highlight Southern Europe as an important hot-spot for the European subterranean spider diversity

Rhetorical-Performative Analysis of the Urban Symbolic Landscape : Populism in Action

This chapter introduces a rhetorical-performative analysis as a tool for exploring urban symbolic landscape and populism and hence deals with relationality and materiality from the postfoundational perspective. It connects the articulation theory of cultural theorists Stuart Hall or political theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and spatial analysis of cultural geographer Doreen Massey to the study of populism. The case of Hungary shows how political frontiers have been articulated in the public space, contestable interpretations of the past are deliberately used and key symbolic urban landscapes transformed radically to articulate a political ‘us’—and ‘them.’ In the 2010s, in the Hungarian capital Budapest, the top-down process transforming urban space faced bottom-up movements which reproduce the populist logic of articulation.Peer reviewe

Mating and aggregative behaviors among basal hexapods in the Early Cretaceous

Among the many challenges in paleobiology is the inference and reconstruction of behaviors that rarely, if ever, leave a physical trace on the environment that is suitable for fossilization. Of particular significance are those behaviors tied to mating and courtship, individual interactions critical for species integrity and continuance, as well as those for dispersal, permitting the taxon to expand its distribution as well as access new habitats in the face of local or long-term environmental change. In this context, two recently discovered fossils from the Early Cretaceous amber of Spain (ca. 105 mya) give a detailed view of otherwise fleeting ethologies in Collembola. These occurrences are phylogenetically spaced across the class, and from species representing the two major clades of springtailsÐSymphypleona and Entomobryomorpha. Specifically, we report unique evidence from a symphypleonan male (Pseudosminthurides stoechus SaÂnchez-GarcõÂa & Engel, 2016) with modified antennae that may have functioned as a clasping organ for securing females during mating on water's surface, and from an aggregation of entomobryomorphan individuals (Proisotoma communis Sánchez-García & Engel, 2016) purportedly representing a swarming episode on the forest floor. We demonstrate that the mating behavioral repertoire in P. stoechus, which is associated with considerable morphological adaptations, likely implied elaborate courtship and maneuvering for guarantee sperm transfer in an epineustic species. These discoveries reveal significant behaviors consistent with modern counterparts and a generalized stasis for some ancient hexapod ethologies associated with complex mating and courtship and social or pre-social aggregations, so critical to specific constancy and dispersal

An annotated checklist of earthworms of Greece (Clitellata: Megadrili)

Szederjesi, Tímea, Vavoulidou, Evangelia, Chalkia, Christina, Dányi, László, Csuzdi, Csaba (2017): An annotated checklist of earthworms of Greece (Clitellata: Megadrili). Zootaxa 4272 (1): 57-82, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4272.1.

Digital activism and Hungarian media reform: The case of Milla

This article examines the rise of the Internet-based opposition group, One Million for the Freedom of the Press in Hungary (or Milla for short), and considers its impact as a form of digital activism in Hungarian political culture. Milla was founded in December 2010 as a Facebook group in response to the newly elected Fidesz government and its fundamental revision of the Hungarian constitution and, in particular, its media laws. Milla is a civil society group, based in Budapest, who saw the Fidesz government as a threat to the democratic freedoms set out in the post-communist settlement in Hungary. It emerged at a time when the mainstream Hungarian opposition parties were in disarray, and it took on the role of challenging the legitimacy of Fidesz actions. Milla is an important example of the idea of digital activism and virtual solidarity, and its experiences serve to illustrate many of the strengths and weaknesses of these notions. The article sets out the ways in which Milla has sought to generate support for itself and opposition to the government, how it has organized its activities and ultimately the specific problems that it faces in Hungarian civil society