Discovery of a rare and striking new pierid butterfly from Panama (Lepidoptera: Pieridae)

Nakahara, Shinichi, Macdonald, John R., Delgado, Francisco, Padrón, Pablo Sebastián (2018): Discovery of a rare and striking new pierid butterfly from Panama (Lepidoptera: Pieridae). Zootaxa 4527 (2): 281-291, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4527.2.

Distributional range expansion and first record of the parasitic wasp Horismenus liturgusae Hansson & Schoeninger, 2014 (Hymenoptera, Eulophidae) on Liturgusa maya Saussure & Zehntner, 1894 (Mantodea, Liturgusidae) from Ecuador

The presence of the parasitic wasp Horismenus liturgusae Hansson & Schoeninger, 2014 is recorded for the first time in Ecuador. This new record significantly expands the known distributional range of the species by more than 2000 km west of its type locality in Manaus, Brazil. In addition, the Neotropical bark mantid Liturgusa maya Saussure & Zehntner, 1894 is reported as a host, and Horismenus specimens were reared from the mantids ootheca

A global phylogeny of butterflies reveals their evolutionary history, ancestral hosts and biogeographic origins

International audienceButterflies are a diverse and charismatic insect group that are thought to have evolved with plants and dispersed throughout the world in response to key geological events. However, these hypotheses have not been extensively tested because a comprehensive phylogenetic framework and datasets for butterfly larval hosts and global distributions are lacking. We sequenced 391 genes from nearly 2,300 butterfly species, sampled from 90 countries and 28 specimen collections, to reconstruct a new phylogenomic tree of butterflies representing 92% of all genera. Our phylogeny has strong support for nearly all nodes and demonstrates that at least 36 butterfly tribes require reclassification. Divergence time analyses imply an origin ~100 million years ago for butterflies and indicate that all but one family were present before the K/Pg extinction event. We aggregated larval host datasets and global distribution records and found that butterflies are likely to have first fed on Fabaceae and originated in what is now the Americas. Soon after the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum, butterflies crossed Beringia and diversified in the Palaeotropics. Our results also reveal that most butterfly species are specialists that feed on only one larval host plant family. However, generalist butterflies that consume two or more plant families usually feed on closely related plants

Evolution over Time of Ventilatory Management and Outcome of Patients with Neurologic Disease∗

OBJECTIVES: To describe the changes in ventilator management over time in patients with neurologic disease at ICU admission and to estimate factors associated with 28-day hospital mortality. DESIGN: Secondary analysis of three prospective, observational, multicenter studies. SETTING: Cohort studies conducted in 2004, 2010, and 2016. PATIENTS: Adult patients who received mechanical ventilation for more than 12 hours. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Among the 20,929 patients enrolled, we included 4,152 (20%) mechanically ventilated patients due to different neurologic diseases. Hemorrhagic stroke and brain trauma were the most common pathologies associated with the need for mechanical ventilation. Although volume-cycled ventilation remained the preferred ventilation mode, there was a significant (p < 0.001) increment in the use of pressure support ventilation. The proportion of patients receiving a protective lung ventilation strategy was increased over time: 47% in 2004, 63% in 2010, and 65% in 2016 (p < 0.001), as well as the duration of protective ventilation strategies: 406 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2004, 523 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2010, and 585 days per 1,000 mechanical ventilation days in 2016 (p < 0.001). There were no differences in the length of stay in the ICU, mortality in the ICU, and mortality in hospital from 2004 to 2016. Independent risk factors for 28-day mortality were age greater than 75 years, Simplified Acute Physiology Score II greater than 50, the occurrence of organ dysfunction within first 48 hours after brain injury, and specific neurologic diseases such as hemorrhagic stroke, ischemic stroke, and brain trauma. CONCLUSIONS: More lung-protective ventilatory strategies have been implemented over years in neurologic patients with no effect on pulmonary complications or on survival. We found several prognostic factors on mortality such as advanced age, the severity of the disease, organ dysfunctions, and the etiology of neurologic disease