New taxa of Orthoptera (Insecta Tettigoniidae Phaneropterinae) from Madagascar

The author reports the results of a study on Orthoptera collected in Madagascar and preserved in two European Natural History museums. He describes Symmetroraggea depravata n. sp., Parapyrrhicia longipodex n. sp., Madagascarantia bartolozzii n. gen. n. sp., Mimoscudderia spinicercata n. sp. In addition, he lists new records or unknown taxonomical characters of Xenodus nobilis Carl, 1914 and Parapyrrhicia virilis Carl, 1914

New genera, species and records of Afrotropical Phaneropterinae (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae) preserved at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Bruxelles.

The results of the study of the rich material of Orthoptera Phaneropterinae at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Bruxelles, are reported. The following new taxa are described: Dithela longicaudata n. sp. from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Terpnistriella bredoi n. gen. n. sp. from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mimoscudderia paulyi n. sp. from the Madagascar, Pseudogoetia constanti n. gen. n. sp. from the Democratic Republic of Congo (including a table listing differences with related genera), and Materuana abyssinica n. sp. from the Ethiopia. Some taxonomic and distributional data about the following species are also reported: Melidia claudiae Massa, 2015, Symmetrokarschia africana (Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1878), Eurycorypha ndokiensis Massa, 2016, Eurycorypha prasinata Stål, 1874, Eurycorypha spinulosa Karsch, 1889, two unidentified species of Eurycorypha recorded by Griffini in 1908, Tylopsis irregularis Karsch, 1893, Pardalota asymmetrica Karsch, 1896, Pardalota haasi Griffini, 1908, Pardalota karschiana Enderlein, 1907, Pardalota versicolor Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1878, Poecilogramma cloetensi (Griffini, 1908), Poecilogramma annulifemur Karsch, 1887, Morgenia spathulifera Griffini, 1908, Mimoscudderia picta Carl, 1914 and Angustithorax spiniger Massa, 2015. The following synonymy is established: Plangiopsis shoutedeni Griffini, 1908 = Plangiopsis adeps Karsch, 1896; the latter species, recently moved to the genus Plangiola Bolívar, 1906 is again transferred to the original genus

New and interesting Orthoptera from the Arabian Peninsula and Socotra

This paper reports on some interesting taxa recently found in the Arabian Peninsula and the island of Socotra. Among them is a new species of brachypterous grasshopper Sphodromerus carapezzanus sp. n. (Acrididae: Calliptaminae), described from an isolated area in Dhofar (Oman). A female Heteracris hemiptera (Uvarov, 1935) (Acrididae: Eyprepocnemidinae) is reported, with morphological characters which do not fully comply with those of any known subspecies. Two species, hitherto rarely documented, are also reported, Phaneroptila insularis Uvarov, 1957 (Tettigoniidae: Phaneropterinae) from Socotra and Cataloipus thomasi Uvarov, 1933 (Acrididae: Eyprepocnemidinae) from Oman. Pycnodictya dentata Krauss, 1902 (Acrididae: Oedipodinae) is reported from Saudi Arabia, constituting a new record for the country

Tettigoniidae (Orthoptera) ovipositing in old galls of Dryocosmus kuriphilus (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae)

Authors report some biological notes on two species of Orthoptera Tettigoniidae emerged from old spongy-woody galls of Dryocosmus kuriphilus Yasumatsu, 1951 collected in April 2015 from some areas of Sicily (Italy): Leptophyes sicula Kleukers, Od\ue9 et Fontana, 2010 (Phaneropterinae) and Cyrtaspis scutata (Charpentier, 1825) (Meconematinae). Between the end of April and the first days of May 30 neanids emerged from the galls, were reared and their cycle followed. While L. sicula laid eggs in groups, C. scutata laid single eggs inside the galls; both species have shown that in a few years they adapted in exploiting this new shelter for egg laying. No interaction with the gall inducing insect was noted

Remarks on the misunderstood use of the term biodiversity

The term diversity is intended to denote species richness understood as the number of species and individuals; it was explicitly discussed at length by Hutchinson in 1959 and by many other scientists in the following decades. The term biodiversity, certainly derived from diversity, was born in the 1980s. The difference between the two terms is substantial, diversity is a part of the whole, as biodiversity is understood as diversity of organisms at the level of species, individuals, genes, interactions and ecological processes among them and at the level of ecosystems. Thus, it is correct to write ‘plant diversity’ or ‘animal diversity’, but not ‘plant biodiversity’ or ‘animal biodiversity’. Biodiversity is unique, it includes all living things, it is equal to a fundamental law of life, the maintenance of adequate levels of biodiversity is a necessity for the very life of our Planet. An illustration of biodiversity seen in the form of mosaic tesserae is tentatively presente

MODELING OF DEFORMATION SOURCES BASED ON A NON-LINEAR INVERSION APPROACH

A new modeling of deformation sources based on a nonlinear inversion approach is proposed. The forward modeling is provided by the semi-analytic deformation model for point sources and finite faults. The parameters of the fault are inverted using a combination of nonlinear optimization algorithms. The misfit function defined for the optimization is based on the L2 norm of the error weighted by the coherence of the considered spatial point. In order to explain our modeling procedure we propose the inversion of a single descending pass differential interferogram of the Bam 2003 earthquake

Determination of Wave Function Functionals: The Constrained-Search--Variational Method

In a recent paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{93}, 130401 (2004)], we proposed the idea of expanding the space of variations in variational calculations of the energy by considering the approximate wave function $\psi$ to be a functional of functions $\chi: \psi = \psi[\chi]$ rather than a function. The space of variations is expanded because a search over the functions $\chi$ can in principle lead to the true wave function. As the space of such variations is large, we proposed the constrained-search-- variational method whereby a constrained search is first performed over all functions $\chi$ such that the wave function functional $\psi[\chi]$ satisfies a physical constraint such as normalization or the Fermi-Coulomb hole sum rule, or leads to the known value of an observable such as the diamagnetic susceptibility, nuclear magnetic constant or Fermi contact term. A rigorous upper bound to the energy is then obtained by application of the variational principle. A key attribute of the method is that the wave function functional is accurate throughout space, in contrast to the standard variational method for which the wave function is accurate only in those regions of space contributing principally to the energy. In this paper we generalize the equations of the method to the determination of arbitrary Hermitian single-particle operators as applied to two-electron atomic and ionic systems. The description is general and applicable to both ground and excited states. A discussion on excited states in conjunction with the theorem of Theophilou is provided.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures, 5 table