scholarly journals Morphometry and DNA barcoding reveal cryptic diversity in the genus Enteromius (Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae) from the Congo basin, Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjolein Van Ginneken ◽  
Eva Decru ◽  
Erik Verheyen ◽  
Jos Snoeks
Keyword(s):  
Drainage System ◽  
Fish Fauna ◽  
Taxonomic Diversity ◽  
Congo Basin ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Dna Barcodes ◽  
Geographic Scale ◽  
The North ◽  
Species Complexes ◽  
Almost All

One of the main challenges to adequately conserve the African fish fauna is to improve our so far unsatisfactory taxonomic knowledge of important portions of the ichthyofauna. In the present study, we attempted to unravel the taxonomic diversity of some species of Enteromius Cope, 1867, a problematic African fish genus, recently collected in the north-eastern part of the Congo basin. We used an integrative approach, combining DNA barcodes and morphological analyses. For one of the species complexes found, the E. miolepis/eutaenia species complex, we evaluated taxonomic diversity over a larger geographic scale within the Congo drainage system. Although initial literature-based species identifications allowed us to assign all examined specimens to four tentative species, DNA barcodes indicated the presence of 23 distinct mitochondrial lineages. The majority of these lineages appeared endemic to particular rivers, and in most rivers multiple lineages occur in sympatry. Subsequent exploratory morphometric analyses indicated that almost all these lineages are morphologically distinguishable and that they may therefore represent undescribed species. As only a part of the Congo basin and a subset of the species diversity within Enteromius were examined, it appears that the species richness of Enteromius in the Congo basin is severely underestimated.

scholarly journals Systematics and geographical distribution ofGalbaspecies, a group of cryptic and worldwide freshwater snails

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pilar Alda ◽  
Manon Lounnas ◽  
Antonio A. Vázquez ◽  
Rolando Ayaqui ◽  
Manuel Calvopiña ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Markers ◽  
Cryptic Species ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Freshwater Snails ◽  
Stabilizing Selection ◽  
Species Complexes ◽  
The Status ◽  
Liver Flukes ◽  
Almost All

AbstractCryptic species can present a significant challenge to the application of systematic and biogeographic principles, especially if they are invasive or transmit parasites or pathogens. Detecting cryptic species requires a pluralistic approach in which molecular markers facilitate the detection of coherent taxonomic units that can then be analyzed using various traits (e.g., internal morphology) and crosses. In asexual or self-fertilizing species, the latter criteria are of limited use. We studied a group of cryptic freshwater snails (genusGalba)from the family Lymnaeidae that have invaded almost all continents, reproducing mainly by self-fertilization and transmitting liver flukes to humans and livestock. We aim to clarify the systematics, distribution and phylogenetic relationships of these species with an integrative approach that includes morphology (shell and reproductive anatomy), molecular markers, wide-scale sampling across America, and data retrieved from GenBank (to include Old World samples). Our phylogenetic analysis suggests that the genusGalbaoriginated ca. 22 Myr ago and today comprises six clusters of species. Four of these clusters (G.truncatula,G.cubensis/viator,G.humilisandG.schirazensis) are morphologically cryptic and constitute species or species complexes with wide variation in their genetic diversity, geographic distribution and invasiveness. The other two clusters constitute a single species or a species complex (Galba cousini/meridensis) that demonstrate more geographically restricted distributions and exhibit an alternative morphology more phylogenetically derived than the cryptic one. Further genetic studies are required to clarify the status of bothG. cousini/meridensisandG.cubensis/viator. We emphasize that noGalbaspecies should be identified without molecular markers and that additional sampling is required, especially in North America, Eurasia and Africa to clarify remaining questions in systematics and biogeography. We also discuss several hypotheses that can explain crypsis inGalba, such as convergence and morphological stasis, and hypothesize a role for stabilizing selection in amphibious (rather than strictly freshwater) habitats.

The northward distribution of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) 40 years later: revisiting Robert E. Gregg’s 1969 Subarctic collection sites in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada

2015 ◽  
Vol 148 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-315
Author(s):  
M. Alex Smith ◽  
Amanda Boyd ◽  
Trevor Bringloe ◽  
Christopher Britton-Foster ◽  
Hayley Cahill ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States Of America ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Dna Barcodes ◽  
Resident Species ◽  
Local Fauna ◽  
Apparent Increase ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
Species Complexes ◽  
The Town ◽  
Collection Sites

AbstractIn 1969, Robert E. Gregg collected five species of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in three Subarctic localities near the town of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, which he documented in a 1972 publication in The Canadian Entomologist. To determine whether there have been any additions to the local fauna – as might be predicted to occur in response to a warming climate and increased traffic to the Port of Churchill in the intervening 40 years – we re-collected ants from the same localities in 2012. We identified the ants we collected from Gregg’s sampling sites using both traditional morphological preparations and DNA barcoding. In addition, we examined specimens from Gregg’s initial collection that are accessioned at the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, Illinois, United States of America). Using this integrative approach we report seven species present at the same sites Gregg sampled 40 years earlier. We conclude that the apparent increase is likely not due to any arrivals from more southerly distributed ants, but to the increased resolution provided by DNA barcodes to resident species complexes with a complicated history. We provide a brief synopsis of these results and their taxonomic context.

scholarly journals A Polar Low Pair over the Norwegian Sea

2009 ◽  
Vol 137 (8) ◽  
pp. 2559-2575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burghard Brümmer ◽  
Gerd Müller ◽  
Gunnar Noer
Keyword(s):  
Heat Budget ◽  
Cloud Layer ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Cloud Base ◽  
Aircraft Measurements ◽  
Polar Lows ◽  
The North ◽  
Polar Low ◽  
Upper Level Jet ◽  
Almost All

Abstract During the Lofotes cyclone experiment (LOFZY 2005), two polar lows developed one behind the other inside a cold-air outbreak from the north in the lee of Spitsbergen on 7 March 2005. Buoys, ship, and aircraft measurements as well as satellite imagery are applied to analyze the polar low bulk properties, the horizontal and vertical structure, and the mass, moisture, and heat budget. The lifetime of the system until landfall at northern Norway was 12 h. The generation occurred under the left exit region of an upper-level jet with 70 m s−1. Both polar lows had a radius of 100–130 km and extended to a height of about 2.5 km. The propagation speeds were within 14–17 m s−1 and correspond to the vertically averaged wind velocity of the lowest 2.5 km. In the polar low centers the pressure was about 2–3 hPa lower and the air was 1–2 K warmer and drier than in the surroundings. Aircraft measurements in the second of the two polar lows show an embedded frontlike precipitation band north of the center. Here, the highest low-level winds with 25 m s−1 and the largest fluxes of sensible and latent heat with 290 and 520 W m−2, respectively, were measured (areal averages amounted to 115 and 190 W m−2). Aircraft data show mass convergence in the subcloud layer (0–900 m) and divergence in the cloud layer (900–2500 m). Moisture supply by evaporation from the sea surface was about twice as large as that by convergence in the subcloud layer. The condensation rate in the cloud layer nearly equaled the rate of evaporation at the sea surface. Almost all condensed cloud water was converted to precipitation water. Only half of the precipitation at the cloud base reached the sea surface.

Amia cf. pattersoni from the Paleocene Paskapoo Formation of Alberta

2000 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lance Grande ◽  
Li Guo-Qing ◽  
Mark VH Wilson
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Fish Fauna ◽  
Taxonomic Diversity ◽  
Geographic Range ◽  
Green River Formation ◽  
Early Eocene ◽  
Freshwater Teleost ◽  
Additional Material ◽  
Green River ◽  
South Central

A well-prepared anterior half of an amiid skull from the Late Paleocene Paskapoo Formation of south-central Alberta is described. The specimen is either very closely related to, or conspecific with, Amia pattersoni Grande and Bemis, 1998, from the Early Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming. We leave the specimen as Amia cf. pattersoni until additional material is found to further clarify its relationships. Amia cf. pattersoni is the oldest known specimen clearly identifiable as belonging to the genus Amia (sensu Grande and Bemis, 1998), and the Paskapoo species extends the known geographic range of Amia both northward and westward. The fish assemblage of the Paskapoo Formation represents the most diverse freshwater Paleocene fish fauna known from North America. Based on comparisons of sample size and relative taxonomic diversity to the better known Green River Formation localities of Wyoming, we predict that further collecting will substantially increase the known diversity of the Paskapoo fauna. The Paskapoo Formation, therefore, has great potential to continue adding to the meager knowledge of pre-Eocene freshwater teleost diversity in North America.

United Front: Partisans of the Leningrad Region and their connections with the Central Asian Soviet Republics

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (02) ◽  
pp. 214-225
Author(s):  
Sergey Kulik ◽  
Аnatoliy Kashevarov ◽  
Zamira Ishankhodjaeva
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Leningrad Region ◽  
World War ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Occupied Territory ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Almost All

During World War II, representatives of almost all the Soviet Republics fought in partisan detachments in the occupied territory of the Leningrad Region. Among them were many representatives of the Central Asian republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Many Leningrad citizens, including relatives of partisans, had been evacuated to Central Asia by that time. However, representatives of Asian workers’ collectives came to meet with the partisans. The huge distance, the difference in cultures and even completely different weather conditions did not become an obstacle to those patriots-Turkestanis who joined the resistance forces in the North-West of Russia.

scholarly journals V.—Geology of the Channel Islands

1878 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Birds
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Channel Islands ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Extended View ◽  
European Coast

In the most extended view, the Channel Islands may be regarded as fragments and relics of the Eastern or European coast of the Atlantic, reckoning from the North Cape to Cape St. Vincent, and including the Western shores of Scotland and Ireland, and the promontories of Pembrokeshire and Cornwall. They are excellent illustrations, says Professor Ansted, “of those spurs and tongues of porphyritic rock, of which almost all the promontories of the Atlantic coast of Europe consist.” Very small and insignificant specks indeed they seem in such a length of coast, stretching from lat. 37° to 72°, or upwards of 2000 miles; but there is a charm in such wide horizons, and it is a very allowable indulgence so to connect the little with the great, and to consider the position of such little specks in relation to the geography of Europe; one might almost as well say, of the world at large.

scholarly journals New Miocene Monachinae from the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay (Maryland, USA)

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Rahmat ◽  
I. A. Koretsky ◽  
J. E. Osborne ◽  
A. A. Alford
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Fish Fauna ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Aquatic Life ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Oligocene ◽  
The Family ◽  
Western Shore ◽  
The North Atlantic

Abstract The Family Phocidae includes four subfamilies (Phocinae, Monachinae, Cystophorinae, and Devinophocinae) consisting of mediumto large-sized mammals that possess distinctive adaptations to semi-aquatic life. In the Miocene of the Chesapeake Group, only two subfamilies of the Family Phocidae were identified: Phocinae and Monachinae. Leptophoca, a representative of the subfamily Phocinae, appears on the eastern shore of the North Atlantic around 16 million years ago. Recently, two new monachine species, the larger Terranectes magnus (n. gen., n. sp.) and the medium-sized T. parvus (n. sp.), were recorded in the Upper Miocene of the Chesapeake Group in the Eastover Formation (7.0–6.0 Ma) and St. Marys Formation (10.0-8.0 Ma). These two distinct subfamilies of seals indicate a well-marked divergence between phocines and monachines, much earlier than 18 million years ago, as previously suggested. The Eastover Formation was deposited in a shallow embayment that covered southern Maryland, the coastal plain of Virginia, and the northeastern corner of North Carolina. The geologically older St. Marys Formation represents a tide-influenced coastal environment, with low-salinity estuaries. There was a sharp temperature decrease in the Late Miocene, indicated by a shift to a cooler-water fish fauna during St. Marys time. The Eastover Formation reflects warmer waters with relatively strong currents, significant shoals, barriers, and varied depths. Fossil evidence of earlier seals suggests that phocids originated in the North Atlantic and otarioids in the North Pacific. True seals diverged from ancient Carnivora in the early Oligocene (or earlier) in the Paratethyan / Mediterranean Basins, spread widely during the Middle Miocene and crossed westward across the Atlantic Ocean, before dispersing in the eastern United States by the Early Pliocene.

Antarctic notothenioid fishes as subjects for research in evolutionary biology

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 276-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph T. Eastman
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Fish Fauna ◽  
Taxonomic Diversity ◽  
Late Eocene ◽  
Taxonomic Composition ◽  
Species Flock ◽  
Subzero Temperatures ◽  
Key Innovation ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Upper Slope

Antarctica is a continental island and the waters of its shelf and upper slope are an insular evolutionary site. The shelf waters resemble a closed basin in the Southern Ocean, separated from other continents by distance, current patterns and subzero temperatures. The benthic fish fauna of the shelf and upper slope of the Antarctic Region includes 213 species with higher taxonomic diversity confined to 18 families. Ninety-six notothenioids, 67 liparids and 23 zoarcids comprise 45%, 32% and 11% of the fauna, a combined total of 88%. In high latitude (71–78°S) shelf areas notothenioids dominate abundance and biomass at levels of 90–95%. Notothenioids are also morphologically and ecologically diverse. Although they lack a swim bladder, the hallmark of the notothenioid radiation has been repeated diversification into water column habitats. There are pelagic, semipelagic, cryopelagic and epibenthic species. Notothenioids exhibit the disproportionate speciosity and high endemism characteristic of fish species flock. Antifreeze glycopeptides originating from a transformed trypsinogen gene are a key innovation. It is not known when the modern Antarctic shelf fauna assumed its current taxonomic composition. A late Eocene fossil fauna was taxonomically diverse and cosmopolitan. There was a subsequent faunal replacement with little carryover of families into the modern fauna. Basal notothenioid clades probably diverged in Gondwanan shelf locations during the early Tertiary. Dates inferred from molecular sequences suggest that phyletically derived Antarctic clades arose 15–5 m.y.a.

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