Geographic range of Pachycondyla harpax (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

Sociobiology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 623 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Kelly Wetterer

Pachycondyla harpax (Fabricius) is a widespread and conspicuous New World ponerine ant (subfamily Ponerinae). To examine the geographic distribution of P. harpax, I compiled and mapped published and unpublished specimen records from >1500 sites. I documented the earliest known P. harpax records for 28 geographic areas (countries, West Indian islands, and US states), including four for which I found no previously published records: the islands of Guadeloupe, Margarita, and Tobago and the US state of Georgia. Pachycondyla harpax has been recorded from every country in South and Central America except Chile and Uruguay. Pachycondyla harpax is also now known from six West Indian islands: Grenada, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Margarita, Trinidad, and Tobago. The known continental range of P. harpax appears to be essentially continuous, extending from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil in the south (31.8°S) to Wood County, Texas in the north (32.8°N), including the continental islands of Margarita, Tobago, and Trinidad. Isolated island populations of P. harpax on Grenada, Guadeloupe, and Jamaica may be exotic, introduced through human commerce. In the US, it is unclear why P. harpax populations are only known from Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia, when there would appear to be suitable habitat for this species all along the Gulf coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. 

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 147-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
James K. Wetterer

Gnamptogenys hartmani is a specialist predator that attacks colonies of fungus-growing ants. To examine the biogeography of G. hartmani, I compiled specimen records of G. hartmani from 36 sites, and records of Gnamptogenys bruchi (a possible junior synonym) from seven sites. Records of Gnamptogenys hartmani ranged from Lucky, Louisiana (32.2°N) in the north to Villa Nougués, Argentina (26.9°S) in the south. If G. bruchi proves to be a synonym of G. hartmani, this would extend the known range as far south as Alta Gracia, Argentina (31.7°S). In the US, G. hartmani populations are known only from Texas and Louisiana, yet there is much apparently suitable habitat along the Gulf coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Given the remarkable scarcity of G. hartmani records throughout its known range, it remains possible that G. hartmani populations occur all along the Gulf coast of the US, but have been overlooked.


2020 ◽  
Vol 224 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-206
Author(s):  
Thomas M Hearn

SUMMARY Seismic attenuation across the US is estimated using station ML magnitude data from the USArray. Station magnitudes are recalibrated back to amplitude and back projected in a 2-D tomography. Data represent the amplitudes of the horizontal components of the Lg phase. The western US shows regions of very high attenuation and contrasts with the lesser attenuation of the eastern US. Individual attenuation anomalies can be clearly tied to regional geology. Station gains show broad regional variations that match geographic regions. Most of the high-attenuation areas are regions of high geothermal activity suggesting that intrinsic attenuation dominates over scattering attenuation. An exception is the central San Andreas Fault zone because it lacks any localized heat-flow anomaly. The US east of the Rocky Mountains is bland and contains none of the high-attenuation regions of the western US. Instead, the central US has low-attenuation patches that do not obviously correspond to geologic province. Sediments of the Gulf Coast Plain, Willison Basin and Michigan Basin do show up as intermediate attenuation while the Illinois Basin, Appalachian Basin and other basins are not apparent. In Alaska, attenuation is generally less than the western US, but still much greater than the eastern US. In southeast Alaska, the Wrangell Volcanic Field causes a sizeable high-attenuation zone. The volcanic Aleutian Mountains also have high attenuation. However, moderate to high attenuation also correlates with the tertiary sedimentary basins in Alaska. The North Slope Basin does not seem to attenuate. Thicker crust and mountain roots tend to show less attenuation, if anything, but this correspondence is most likely due to differences in temperature and seismic velocity. Heat, scattering and young sedimentary basins create seismic attenuation in the continental crust.


Author(s):  
Jeanine Vélez-Gavilán

Abstract Thymophylla tenuiloba is a small annual or short-lived perennial herb native to Texas and northern Mexico. It is used as an ornamental species and has escaped from cultivation in some parts of its distribution range. It is reported as invasive in the Bahamas, Hawaii and in some of the US states bordering the Gulf Coast. No details are available on its invasiveness and its effect over other species or habitats. T. tenuiloba is listed as an alien species in Anguilla, Cuba and parts of the USA; it is included in the Global Invasive Species Database but with no further information and also listed as a species of concern to Pacific ecosystems. T. tenuiloba is considered to be potentially invasive in Saba and Curaçao and listed as an environmental weed in Queensland, Australia.


Norteamérica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Eduardo Mendoza Cota

The USMCA will impose a restructuring of the North American supply chains to meet the new input content requirements. To evaluate the determinants of the US-Mexico trade under the new agreement, an econometric model is estimated. The estimations indicate that the distance from the US states to the Mexican border and the size of the economies of the states of Mexico are factors that impact trade between the two countries. Tariffs applied under the USMCA have had a minor but positive impact. Foreign direct investment showed positive effects on trade, indicating the existence of value chains between the US and Mexico. The results suggest that polices to encourage trade between the two countries would require the development of transportation infrastructure, as well as the promotion of investment in strategic sectors to further develop regional supply chains.


1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-52
Author(s):  
Mahmud A. Faksh

I.Since the end of World War 11, approximately eighty new states havebeen established. Only two, Pakistan and Cyprus, have undergone theagony of dismemberment when Bangladesh broke off in 1973 and theTurkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was declared in 1983. The worldmay now be witnessing the possible breakup of yet a third state:Lebanon, whose disintegration has been accelerated since the June 1982Israeli invasion.Shortly after the invasion began, Henry Kissinger assessed itsconsequence for Lebanon’s future, concluding, “It is neither desirablenor possible to return to the status quo ante in Lebanon.” One possibleoutcome was that some Syrian and Israeli forces would remain in thenorthern and southern ends, respectively, and the central government’sauthority would ostensibly cover the rest of the country. Implicit in theKissinger diagnosis is the possibility of eventual partition.Though the gloomy assessment by the “wizard” of US. foreign policyshould by no means be construed as a portent of an official shift awayfrom the publicly stated US. support of “Lebanon’s sovereignty andterritorial integrity,” a shadow was cast on the country’s prospects.Subsequent developments have seemed to indicate that Lebanon’sdemise looms larger than at any time since the beginning of the civil warin 1975-76.For over a year and a half national fragmentation has proceededinexorably. What many people once could imagine only with difficulty,they now acknowledge: in reality, Lebanon is facing possible death. TheSouth (35 percent of the land area) is occupied by Israel; the North andthe Biqa’ (45 percent) are controlled by Syria; Kasrawan (15 percent) iscontrolled by the Christian Maronite forces (the Lebanese Front forces),which are not subject to the government’s authority. The rest of thecountry-beleaguered Beirut and environs-was until the February1984 breakdown under the government’s shaky control supported bysymbolic US., French, Italian, and British units. The Multi-NationalForce (MNF) was subject to increasing attacks by Muslim leftist factions,as witnessed in the October 23 bombing of the quarters of U.S.Marines and French troops. Thus, instead of keeping peace, the MNFbecame ,a partisan force trying to protect itself. The US. and Frenchforces in particular seemed to have outlived their usefulness as“peacekeepers.” Recurrent fighting in southern Beirut and in theadjacent Chouf mountains, that pitted Christian Maronites and armyunits against Shi‘ite and Druse Muslims constantly threatened theexistence of President Amin Gemayel’s government and consequently arenewal of the civil war. This situation culminated in February 1984 inthe resignation of the Shafiq al-Wazzan’s cabinet, the loss ofgovernment’s control of West Beirut to Muslim-leftist militias, and theimminent collapse of Amin Gemayel’s presidency ...


Author(s):  
Jeffrey Lawrence

This chapter turns from a historical account of the development of the US literature of experience and the Latin American literature of reading to a textual analysis of the US and Latin American historical novel. Hemispheric/inter-American scholars often cite William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977) as exemplifying instances of literary borrowing across the North–South divide. As I demonstrate, however, each of the later texts also realigns its predecessor’s historical imaginary according to the dominant logics of the US and Latin American literary fields. Whereas the American works foreground experiential models of reconstructing the past and conveying knowledge across generations, García Márquez’s Latin American novel presents reading as the fundamental mode of comprehending and transmitting history.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey Lawrence

This chapter focuses on a paradigmatic misencounter between an American experiencer and a Latin American reader. Examining an implicit debate about the sources of Walt Whitman’s poetry and vision of the Americas, I argue that Waldo Frank, one of the twentieth century’s main literary ambassadors from the US to Latin America, positioned Whitman as the representative US writer whose antibookish experiential aesthetics could serve as a model for “American” writers both in the North and in the South. I show how Frank’s framework provided a foil for Borges’s idiosyncratic view that Whitman’s poetry about America derived entirely from his readings of European and US writers. Although much of the best scholarship on Whitman’s reception in Latin America has concentrated on poets like José Martí and Pablo Neruda, who adapted Whitman’s naturalism, I contend that Borges’s iconoclastic portrait of Whitman as a reader profoundly influenced a range of anti-experiential literary theories and practices in Latin America.


2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
BORIS A. TINOCO ◽  
PEDRO X. ASTUDILLO ◽  
STEVEN C. LATTA ◽  
CATHERINE H. GRAHAM

SummaryThe Violet-throated MetaltailMetallura baroniis a high altitude hummingbird endemic to south-central Ecuador currently considered globally ‘Endangered’. Here we present the first detailed assessment of its distribution, ecology and conservation. We first used a maximum entropy model (Maxent model) to create a predicted distribution for this species based on very limited species occurrence data. We used this model to guide field surveys for the species between April and October 2006. We found a positive relationship between model values and species presence, indicating that the model was a useful tool to predict species occurrence and guide exploration. In the sites where the metaltail was found we gathered data on its habitat requirements, food resources and behaviour. Our results indicate that Violet-throated Metaltail is restricted to the Western Cordillera of the Andes Mountains in Azuay and Cañar provinces of Ecuador, with an area of extent of less than 2,000 km2. Deep river canyons to the north and south, lack of suitable habitat, and potential interspecific competition in the east may limit the bird's distribution. The species occurred in three distinct habitats, includingPolylepiswoodland, the upper edge of the montane forest, and in shrubby paramo, but we found no difference in relative abundance among these habitats. The metaltail seems to tolerate moderate human intervention in its habitats as long as some native brushy cover is maintained. We found thatBrachyotumsp.,Berberissp., andBarnadesiasp. were important nectar resources. The ‘Endangered’ status of this species is supported due to its restricted distribution in fragmented habitats which are under increasing human pressures.


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