Blood-feeding behavior of anopheles gambiae and anopheles melas in Ghana, Western Africa

金沢大学理工研究域自然システム学系Anopheles gambiae is the predominant malaria vector species in Ghana, western Africa, with a strong local presence of Anopheles melas Theobald along the southern coast. We studied the biting behavior of these two species of the Anopheles gambiae complex inland and at the coast in Ghana, with special attention to the local peoples\u27 preference for outdoor sleeping. We collected mosquitoes at two sites in 2007, representing the moist semideciduous forest zone and the strand and mangrove zone, and the sampling was repeated in the dry and rainy seasons. Sampled mosquitoes were examined for species, parity and size (wing length), and we identified the hosts of their bloodmeals. We interviewed 288 of the village people to determine where and when they slept outdoors. Our study confirmed that An. gambiae is the only species of the An. gambiae complex in the Ashanti region and revealed that An. melas is highly dominant on the western coast of Ghana. Both species showed high human blood rates in indoor resting mosquito samples. More people sleep outside on the coast than inland. An. melas demonstrated high exophily. An. gambiae bit people more frequently indoors and did so more often during the dry season than in the rainy season. We suggest that the degree of exophily in An. melas may be affected by humidity and the availability of human as well as by the mosquitoes\u27 innate habits. © 2010 Entomological Society of America

Completing Linnaeus's inventory of the Swedish insect fauna: Only 5,000 species left?

Despite more than 250 years of taxonomic research, we still have only a vague idea about the true size and composition of the faunas and floras of the planet. Many biodiversity inventories provide limited insight because they focus on a small taxonomic subsample or a tiny geographic area. Here, we report on the size and composition of the Swedish insect fauna, thought to represent roughly half of the diversity of multicellular life in one of the largest European countries. Our results are based on more than a decade of data from the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative and its massive inventory of the country's insect fauna, the Swedish Malaise Trap Project The fauna is considered one of the best known in the world, but the initiative has nevertheless revealed a surprising amount of hidden diversity: more than 3,000 new species (301 new to science) have been documented so far. Here, we use three independent methods to analyze the true size and composition of the fauna at the family or subfamily level: (1) assessments by experts who have been working on the most poorly known groups in the fauna; (2) estimates based on the proportion of new species discovered in the Malaise trap inventory; and (3) extrapolations based on species abundance and incidence data from the inventory. For the last method, we develop a new estimator, the combined non-parametric estimator, which we show is less sensitive to poor coverage of the species pool than other popular estimators. The three methods converge on similar estimates of the size and composition of the fauna, suggesting that it comprises around 33,000 species. Of those, 8,600 (26%) were unknown at the start of the inventory and 5,000 (15%) still await discovery. We analyze the taxonomic and ecological composition of the estimated fauna, and show that most of the new species belong to Hymenoptera and Diptera groups that are decomposers or parasitoids. Thus, current knowledge of the Swedish insect fauna is strongly biased taxonomically and ecologically, and we show that similar but even stronger biases have distorted our understanding of the fauna in the past. We analyze latitudinal gradients in the size and composition of known European insect faunas and show that several of the patterns contradict the Swedish data, presumably due to similar knowledge biases. Addressing these biases is critical in understanding insect biomes and the ecosystem services they provide. Our results emphasize the need to broaden the taxonomic scope of current insect monitoring efforts, a task that is all the more urgent as recent studies indicate a possible worldwide decline in insect faunas

A molecular-based identification resource for the arthropods of Finland

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Molecular Ecology Resources published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.To associate specimens identified by molecular characters to other biological knowledge, we need reference sequences annotated by Linnaean taxonomy. In this study, we (1) report the creation of a comprehensive reference library of DNA barcodes for the arthropods of an entire country (Finland), (2) publish this library, and (3) deliver a new identification tool for insects and spiders, as based on this resource. The reference library contains mtDNA COI barcodes for 11,275 (43%) of 26,437 arthropod species known from Finland, including 10,811 (45%) of 23,956 insect species. To quantify the improvement in identification accuracy enabled by the current reference library, we ran 1000 Finnish insect and spider species through the Barcode of Life Data system (BOLD) identification engine. Of these, 91% were correctly assigned to a unique species when compared to the new reference library alone, 85% were correctly identified when compared to BOLD with the new material included, and 75% with the new material excluded. To capitalize on this resource, we used the new reference material to train a probabilistic taxonomic assignment tool, FinPROTAX, scoring high success. For the full-length barcode region, the accuracy of taxonomic assignments at the level of classes, orders, families, subfamilies, tribes, genera, and species reached 99.9%, 99.9%, 99.8%, 99.7%, 99.4%, 96.8%, and 88.5%, respectively. The FinBOL arthropod reference library and FinPROTAX are available through the Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility (www.laji.fi) at https://laji.fi/en/theme/protax. Overall, the FinBOL investment represents a massive capacity-transfer from the taxonomic community of Finland to all sectors of society.Peer reviewe

Brevicornu sericoma Meigen 1830

Brevicornu sericoma (Meigen, 1830) Brevicornu sericoma Meigen, 1830: 302 Specimen determined as Mycetophila bicolour Meigen, 1830 in the "Exotic" collection. Material. Male [SPM­005257, without coloured tag, labelled: M. bicolour Meig. ď? Neuenkirch. 20 mai] – Germany: "Neuenkirchen prope Gryphiam" = near Greitswald, 15–20 May 1842, leg. Dahlbom.Published as part of Kjaerandsen, Jostein, 2005, A review of fungus gnats in the tribe Exechiini (Diptera, Mycetophilidae) from the J. W. Zetterstedt collection at the Museum of Zoology in Lund, Sweden, pp. 1-35 in Zootaxa 856 on page 21, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17074

Synplasta gracilis Winnertz 1863

* Synplasta gracilis (Winnertz, 1863) Rymosia gracilis Winnertz, 1863: 820 nec Rymosia excogitata Dziedzicki, 1910: figs 98–102 Rhymosia excogitata; Edwards 1941: 76, figs 8 d & 8 e Specimen determined as Mycetophila maculosa Meigen, 1818 in the " Diptera Scandinaviae " collection. Material. Male [SPM­005245, upper] and female [SPM­005246, lower] on single pin [with light blue tag, otherwise unlabelled, but standing in between two specimens labelled: M. maculosa both of which has lost the abdomen (see under Allodiopsis s. lat. spp.)] – Sweden: SK, Kivik´s Esperöd in Mellby parish, undated.Published as part of Kjaerandsen, Jostein, 2005, A review of fungus gnats in the tribe Exechiini (Diptera, Mycetophilidae) from the J. W. Zetterstedt collection at the Museum of Zoology in Lund, Sweden, pp. 1-35 in Zootaxa 856 on page 32, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17074

Allodia

Allodia (Brachycampta) sp(p). Specimens determined as Mycetophila alternans Zetterstedt, 1838 in Zetterstedt (1852: 4215). Material. Female [SPM­005156, light blue tag, labelled: M. alternans Zett. Ψ. Esper.] – Sweden: SK, Kivik´s Esperöd in Mellby parish, undated. Sex unknown, lacking abdomen [SPM­005155, with light green tag, labelled: M. alternans sp var. Tärna] – Sweden: LY, Tärna, 1840.Published as part of Kjaerandsen, Jostein, 2005, A review of fungus gnats in the tribe Exechiini (Diptera, Mycetophilidae) from the J. W. Zetterstedt collection at the Museum of Zoology in Lund, Sweden, pp. 1-35 in Zootaxa 856 on page 17, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17074

Brevicornu nigrofuscum Lundstrom 1909

* Brevicornu nigrofuscum (Lundström, 1909) Brachycampta nigrofusca Lundström, 1909: 27, figs 40 & 41 Specimen determined as a possible Mycetophila griseola Zetterstedt, 1852 in the " Diptera Scandinaviae " collection. Material. Male [SPM­005165, mounted on slide, without coloured tag, labelled: M. griseola ? ď Tärna. [and on a separate label] Pach. cinereus ? ď. Tärna] – Sweden: LY, Tärna, 1821.Published as part of Kjaerandsen, Jostein, 2005, A review of fungus gnats in the tribe Exechiini (Diptera, Mycetophilidae) from the J. W. Zetterstedt collection at the Museum of Zoology in Lund, Sweden, pp. 1-35 in Zootaxa 856 on page 21, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17074

Two new species of Allodia subgenus Brachycampta Winnertz from Norway and Sweden (Diptera : Mycetophilidae)

Allodia (Brachycampta) huggerti sp. n. from Sweden and Allodia (Brachycampta) rindeni sp. n. from Norway and Sweden are described based on a few adult males. Detailed illustrations of their terminalia are provided. The A. (B.) barbata species group is defined for species of which both dorsal and ventral branches of the male gonostylus are reduced to slender lobes, and the two new species both belong in this species group. They differ from other species in the species group primarily by the structure of the apicoventral corners of the gonocoxite, by the shape of the hypandrial lobe, and in details of the gonostylus. The new species seem to be most closely related with each other and further to A. (B.) racemosa Zaitzev, 1992 known from Alaska. The new species are named in memory of their collectors, the late dr. Lars Huggert (1942-2003) and the late Helge Rinden (1967-1999)

Notolopha brachycera Zetterstedt 1852

* Notolopha brachycera (Zetterstedt, 1852) sp. restit. stat. n. Mycetophila brachycera Zetterstedt, 1852: 4224 Brachycampta brachycera; Poppius, Lundström & Frey 1917: 667 nec Rhymosia cristata; Edwards 1924: 163 Allodiopsis (Notolopha) tuomikoskii Zaitzev & Maximova, 2000: 177 syn. n. Material. Holotype (Fig. 8) male [SPM­005230, with light green tag, labelled: M. brachycera Zett. ď Mulfjäll.] – Sweden: JÄ, Mullfjället, 30. July 1840. Undetermined specimen in the "Insecta Lapponica" collection. Material. Male [SPM­005231, without coloured tag, unlabelled] – Locality unknown, undated. The type specimen confirms well with the drawings and description of Allodiopsis (Notolopha) tuomikoskii provided by Zaitzev & Maximova (2000), including shape and distribution of setae on the mesoscutum. Tuomikoski (1966) apparently was aware of this species, but in the collections at Finnish Museum of Natural History there are material of both N. brachycera and N. sibirica Zaitzev & Maximova, 2000 mixed under the informal name " subcristata ". As this species by most authors has been synonymized with N. cristata, following Edwards (1924), this represents the first correctly reported record of this species from Sweden after Poppius et al. (1917). Hedmark (2000), however, correctly suggested that N. brachycera possibly could be a valid name for the distinct variant of N. cristata (Staeger, 1840) he reported from northern Sweden.Published as part of Kjaerandsen, Jostein, 2005, A review of fungus gnats in the tribe Exechiini (Diptera, Mycetophilidae) from the J. W. Zetterstedt collection at the Museum of Zoology in Lund, Sweden, pp. 1-35 in Zootaxa 856 on page 30, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17074

Exechia bicincta Staeger 1840

Exechia bicincta (Staeger, 1840) Mycetophila bicincta Staeger, 1840: 263 Mycetophila interrupta Zetterstedt, 1852: 4240 Material. Male [SPM­005178, purple red tag, labelled: M. interrupta Zett. ď. Lund. 5 oct.] – Sweden: SK, Lund, 5. October 1838.Published as part of Kjaerandsen, Jostein, 2005, A review of fungus gnats in the tribe Exechiini (Diptera, Mycetophilidae) from the J. W. Zetterstedt collection at the Museum of Zoology in Lund, Sweden, pp. 1-35 in Zootaxa 856 on page 23, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17074