Two New Strumigenys F. Smith (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae) from Montane Forests of Ecuador

Two new species from the myrmicine ant genus Strumigenys found in cloud forests above 2000 m in southern Ecuador are described and illustrated. S. lojanensis n. sp. is a member of the gundlachi complex described from 8 workers and 2 queens. S. madrigalae n. sp. is a member of the schulzi group described from 1 worker and 1 queen. Characters that permit separation from closely appearing species are presented. The gundlachi group of Strumigenys now has at least 5 species known from andean cloud forests above 2000 m in northern South America

Nuevas especies de Gnamptogenys Roger, 1863 de Am\ue9rica (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae)

Lattke JE. 2002. New species of Gnamtogenys Roger, 1863 from America (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae). Entomotropica 17(2):135-144. Seven new species (five recent, two fossil) of Gnamptogenys from the Caribbean, Central and South America are described: G. biquetra sp.n., G. brunoi sp.n., G. casca sp.n., G. falcaria sp.n. , G. insularis sp.n., G. lavra sp.n., and G. rumba sp.n. A key for separating the four known species from Dominican Amber is presented.Lattke JE. 2002. Nuevas especies de Gnamtogenys Roger, 1863 de Am\ue9rica (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae). Entomotropica 17(2):135-144. Se describen siete nuevas especies (cinco recientes, dos f\uf3siles) de Gnamptogenys del Caribe, Centro- y Suram\ue9rica: G. biquetra sp.n., G. brunoi sp.n., G. casca sp.n., G. falcaria sp.n., G. insularis sp.n., G. lavra sp.n., y G. rumba sp.n. Se presenta una clave para separar las cuatro especies conocidas del \ue1mbar dominicano

Survey of Ants in Dry Forests of Southwestern Ecuador (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Two dry forests of southwestern Ecuador separated 43 km from each other, one situated at 460 m above sea level and the other at 680 m, are surveyed for ants giving a total of 28 species collected manually and from pitfall traps. Eleven species are shared between the sites whilst four are exclusive to one site and 13 to other. Differences in humidity, rainfall seasonality, and disturbance regimes may account for at least part of the differences observed between the ant communities of the two sites. Dorymyrmex pyramicus peruvianum Wheeler, 1919 andPseudomyrmex kuenckeli (Emery, 1890) are reported from Ecuador for the first time. Cardiocondyla emeryi Forel, 1881 and Camponotus conspicuus zonatus Emery, 1894are reported from mainland Ecuador for the first time. The genus Dorymyrmex Mayr, 1866 is recorded from Ecuador for the first time

Morphological and genetic evidence supports the separation of two tapinoma ants (Formicidae, dolichoderinae) from the atlantic forest biome

The taxonomic boundaries of many Neotropical ant species of the genus Tapinoma are still unclear. Tapinoma atriceps and T. atriceps breviscapum are two morphologically similar taxa which occur sympatrically in the southern Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Some characters such as the scape length and head shape suggest that these taxa may be different species. We used DNA analysis and morphological evidence, including scanning electron microscopy, to evaluate the taxonomic validity of these taxa. We found distinct morphological characteristics that allow separating them as two different species, Tapinoma atriceps and Tapinoma breviscapum status novo, and this decision is supported by the DNA results, where Tapinoma atriceps was recovered as a lineage independent of T. breviscapum

Biogeography of mutualistic fungi cultivated by leafcutter ants

Leafcutter ants propagate co-evolving fungi for food. The nearly 50 species of leafcutter ants (Atta, Acromyrmex) range from Argentina to the United States, with the greatest species diversity in southern South America. We elucidate the biogeography of fungi cultivated by leafcutter ants using DNA sequence and microsatellite-marker analyses of 474 cultivars collected across the leafcutter range. Fungal cultivars belong to two clades (Clade-A and Clade-B). The dominant and widespread Clade-A cultivars form three genotype clusters, with their relative prevalence corresponding to southern South America, northern South America, Central and North America. Admixture between Clade-A populations supports genetic exchange within a single species, Leucocoprinus gongylophorus. Some leafcutter species that cut grass as fungicultural substrate are specialized to cultivate Clade-B fungi, whereas leafcutters preferring dicot plants appear specialized on Clade-A fungi. Cultivar sharing between sympatric leafcutter species occurs frequently such that cultivars of Atta are not distinct from those of Acromyrmex. Leafcutters specialized on Clade-B fungi occur only in South America. Diversity of Clade-A fungi is greatest in South America, but minimal in Central and North America. Maximum cultivar diversity in South America is predicted by the Kusnezov–Fowler hypothesis that leafcutter ants originated in subtropical South America and only dicot-specialized leafcutter ants migrated out of South America, but the cultivar diversity becomes also compatible with a recently proposed hypothesis of a Central American origin by postulating that leafcutter ants acquired novel cultivars many times from other nonleafcutter fungus-growing ants during their migrations from Central America across South America. We evaluate these biogeographic hypotheses in the light of estimated dates for the origins of leafcutter ants and their cultivars

The global distribution of known and undiscovered ant biodiversity

Invertebrates constitute the majority of animal species and are critical for ecosystem functioning and services. Nonetheless, global invertebrate biodiversity patterns and their congruences with vertebrates remain largely unknown. We resolve the first high-resolution (~20-km) global diversity map for a major invertebrate clade, ants, using biodiversity informatics, range modeling, and machine learning to synthesize existing knowledge and predict the distribution of undiscovered diversity. We find that ants and different vertebrate groups have distinct features in their patterns of richness and rarity, underscoring the need to consider a diversity of taxa in conservation. However, despite their phylogenetic and physiological divergence, ant distributions are not highly anomalous relative to variation among vertebrate clades. Furthermore, our models predict that rarity centers largely overlap (78%), suggesting that general forces shape endemism patterns across taxa. This raises confidence that conservation of areas important for small-ranged vertebrates will benefit invertebrates while providing a “treasure map” to guide future discovery.The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowships for Foreign Researchers Program, Japan Ministry of the Environment, Environment Research, and Technology Development Fund no. 4-1904, the Leverhulme Trust, the National Science Foundation, Australian Research Discovery Grant, Foundational Biodiversity Information Programme (South Africa), and the USDA and NIFA support of the Mississippi Entomological Museum.https://www.science.org/journal/sciadvam2023Zoology and Entomolog

Taxonomy based on science is necessary for global conservation

Peer reviewe

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016