How and why are digital badges being used in higher education in New Zealand?

Digital technologies, as mediators and facilitators of learning, are altering tertiary education; how and when it occurs, what it entails, who has access, and how capabilities and skills are acknowledged. Digital badges are one such technological tool. Created to acknowledge competency, skill or achievement they have been adopted for a variety of purposes including to motivate learners, recognise achievement and accredit learning. Internationally, the use of digital badges is growing; however, much of the existing literature addresses the potential of digital badges while there is a relative paucity of empirical research, particularly in the Australasian region. This research explored the use of digital badges within New Zealand’s public higher education sector. Using a mixed methods approach (national survey of staff followed by interviews), results revealed over half of the institutions were using badges or planned to in the future. Identified benefits included displaying achievement, motivating learners and evidencing learning. Challenges were also noted, including faculty members’ lack of knowledge about badges, inconsistent use and lack of formal regulation of badges. The findings suggest that badge use is at the early adoption stage and provide valuable insights from which to develop future practice.

A Matter of Scale: Population Genomic Structure and Connectivity of Fisheries At-Risk Common Dolphins (Delphinus delphis) From Australasia

An understanding of population structure and connectivity at multiple spatial scales is required to assist wildlife conservation and management. This is particularly critical for widely distributed and highly mobile marine mammals subject to fisheries by-catch. Here, we present a population genomic assessment of a near-top predator, the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), which is incidentally caught in multiple fisheries across the Australasian region. The study was carried out using 14,799 ddRAD sequenced genome-wide markers genotyped for 478 individuals sampled at multiple spatial scales across Australasia. A complex hierarchical metapopulation structure was identified, with three highly distinct and genetically diverse regional populations at large spatial scales (>1,500 km). The populations inhabit the southern coast of Australia, the eastern coast of Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, with the latter also showing a considerable level of admixture to Australia's east coast. Each of these regional populations contained two to four nested local populations (i.e., subpopulations) at finer spatial scales, with most of the gene flow occurring within distances of 50 to 400 km. Estimates of contemporary migration rates between adjacent subpopulations ranged from 6 to 25%. Overall, our findings identified complex common dolphin population structure and connectivity across state and international jurisdictions, including migration and gene flow across the Tasman Sea. The results indicate that inter-jurisdictional collaboration is required to implement conservation management strategies and mitigate fisheries interactions of common dolphins across multiple spatial scales in the Australasian region.

Fig. S1 & Tables S1-S4

Figure S1. Overview map of the biogeographical regions used for Table 1. Biogeographic regions are based on biogeographic realms (https://ecoregions2017.appspot.com/), with three major differences: Western Palearctic (Western part of the Palearctic realm), Asia (Eastern part of the Palearctic realm combined with the Indo-Malay realm), and Australasia (Australasian realm combined with the Oceanian realm). The Palearctic realm was spilt into Western Palearctic and Eastern Palearctic, Eastern Palearctic and the Indo-Malay realm form together the Asia region, and the Australasian realm is combined with the Oceania realm to form the Australasian region.Table S1. List of described Lactifluus species, together with the year of description, taxonomical classification (subgenus, section), the indication of how this taxonomical position was defined, the source(s) of this classification, and notes.Table S2. Extra information on the preliminary study of metabarcoding data of the genus Lactifluus, retrieved from the GlobalFungi website.Table S3. Overview of the results of the preliminary study of metabarcoding data of the genus Lactifluus, retrieved from the GlobalFungi website. Due to the generally shorter length and lower quality of environmental sequence data, the numbers in the table are to be considered an estimate.Table S4. List of the putative new species found in the environmental sequences. References of studies cited are given in S3.

Norway Comes to New Zealand: Edward Kidson, Jørgen Holmboe, and the Modernization of Australasian Meteorology

Edward Kidson, Director of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand from 1927 until his death in 1939, was an instrumental figure in modernizing Australasian meteorology. Throughout the 1920s, Kidson promoted the methods of synoptic analysis emanating from the Bergen School of Meteorology. However, it was not until the 1930s that he began in earnest to apply these methods to weather charts for the Australasian region. This development was aided by two visits he made to Bergen and by a personal correspondence he maintained with Jacob Bjerknes during the 1930s. In 1932, Kidson presented the first Norwegian-style analysis conducted for a Southern Hemisphere region, promptly following this with a more extensive study. However, these analyses were not of a sufficient standard at that stage to be adopted in forecasting practice. It was the fortuitous visit to New Zealand of Norwegian meteorologist Jørgen Holmboe, in 1934, that finally facilitated the transition. Holmboe was attached to the Lincoln Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition, but damage to their aircraft caused them to spend the winter of 1934 in New Zealand. Holmboe was engaged at the Meteorological Service in Wellington during this period, working with Kidson to apply Norwegian methods to the region. Kidson had hoped to further embed this practice by employing Tor Bergeron in New Zealand during 1938. Bergeron had accepted an offer from Kidson but canceled at the last minute after contracting rheumatic fever. Nevertheless, shortly after Holmboe’s visit, daily analyses were being conducted along Norwegian lines, bringing Australasian meteorology into the twentieth century.

Sexual Dimorphism of New Zealand Puppet Beetles (Aderidae, Coleoptera, Tenebrionoidea): Systematic Revision, Description of Three New Genera, and Phylogeny for Zenascus, gen. n.

The Aderidae (Coleoptera: Tenebrionoidea) of New Zeland are revised to include four genera and fourteen species. Three genera are described as new: one distributed throughout the Australasian region (Zenascus gen. n.) one endemic to the north and south islands of New Zealand (Transrenus gen. n.), and one that is endemic to the south island of New Zealand (Pseudozena gen. n.). Six species are also newly described (Pseudozena denticulata sp. n., Transrenus thulater sp. n., Zenascus roberti sp. n., Z. incensum sp. n., Z. elenae sp. n., Z. aurum sp. n.). All previously described New Zealand species of aderids contained in the preoccupied genus Xylophilus are transferred to the newly erected genus Zenascus, resulting in six new combinations (Z. antennalis (Broun), comb. n.; Z. coloratus (Broun), comb. n.; Z. luniger (Champion), comb. n.; Z. nitidus (Broun), comb. n.; Z. obscurus (Broun), comb. n.; Z. xenarthrus (Broun, 1910: 54), comb. n.). Holotype and lectotype designations are made or verified for all previously described species. The New Zealand species Xylophilus pictipes Broun is synonymized with Zenascus obscurus, syn. n. and Scraptogetus nigricans is synonymized with Scraptogetus anthracinus, syn. n. The Australian genus Pseudananca Blackburn 1893 is synonymized with the New Zealand genus Scraptogetus Broun, syn. n. Keys to the genera and species are included. Phenotypic characters previously employed in the higher classification of the Aderidae, including secondary sexually dimorphic characters, are discussed and a phylogenetic analysis for the ten New Zealand species of Zenascus is performed to reconstruct trait evolution in males, which display extreme dimorphic antennomere modifications.

A revised checklist of mosquitoes Genus Coquillettidia Dyar, 1905 (Diptera: Culicidae) from Indonesia with key to species

Nugroho SS, Ayuningrum FD, Setyaningsih RS, Astutu UNW. 2020. A revised checklist of mosquitoes Genus Coquillettidia Dyar, 1905 (Diptera: Culicidae) from Indonesia with key to species. Biodiversitas 21: 5772-5777. Mosquito species from Genus Coquillettidia are mostly found in Afrotropic Region, with some species distributed in the Oriental and Australasian Region including Indonesia. Some species are confirmed as the vector for human pathogens. As previous research stated that up to 1981, there were eight species of Coquillettidia that have been on the checklist of mosquitoes in Indonesia. Nowadays, eleven Coquillettidia species present in Indonesia entirely included in Subgenus Coquillettidia. Three species were added to the checklist, namely Cq. fuscopteron Theobald, Cq. novochracea Barraud, and Cq. xanthogaster Edwards. Research and publication about Genus Coquillettidia in Indonesia are still rare, besides that, the identification key of Coquillettidia female mosquito in Indonesia has never been published before. This paper intended to deliver information about the species checklist and distribution of Genus Coquillettidia in Indonesia and provide a species identification key for female mosquitoes.

Molecular data reveal unexpected species diversity of tapeworms of Australasian reptiles: revision of Kapsulotaenia (Cestoda: Proteocephalidae)

Species diversity and interrelationships of tapeworms of the genus Kapsulotaenia Freze, 1963 (Proteocephalidae: Acanthotaeniinae), parasites of lizards, especially monitors (Varanus spp.) in the Australasian region, were re-assessed using an interdisciplinary approach. Molecular phylogenetic analyses of newly characterized lsrDNA and cox1 sequences confirmed monophyly of the genus, which is typified by the presence of eggs in capsules, and also indicated a strict (oioxenous) level of host specificity of its species thus revealing unexpected species diversity. Diagnoses of insufficiently described species were amended based on a study of the types and freshly collected specimens and, in addition, three new species were described. A list of ten species of the genus recognized as valid is provided, including illustrations of taxonomically important structures of poorly known taxa. Kapsulotaenia beveridgei n. sp. from V. rosenbergi in Australia differs from all other species of Kapsulotaenia but K. frezei and K. saccifera by having a lower number of testes and an absence of banana-shaped clusters of eggs. Kapsulotaenia cannoni n. sp. from V. gouldii can be distinguished from all species but K. chisholmae by a smaller scolex diameter and from all remaining species by its bigger cirrus-sac ratio and a bigger Mehlis’ gland/proglottid width ratio. Kapsulotaenia cannoni n. sp. differs from K. chisholmae, by the presence of an armed cirrus and a lower number of eggs in cluster (3–7 versus 8–13). Kapsulotaenia nybelini n. sp., which also occurs in V. gouldii, differs from K. tidswelli, K. frezei and K. beveridgei by having a greater number of testes, and it differs from K. varia by having a smaller relative size of the ovary. It differs from K. saccifera by the absence of banana-shaped cluster, and from K. pythonis by the number of eggs in clusters. Identification keys for all species of Kapsulotaenia and genera of the Acanthotaeniinae are also provided, together with SEM micrographs of three species, including two newly described species.

Reevaluation of species richness in Winnertzia (Diptera, Cecidomyiidae, Winnertziinae), with descriptions of 37 new species from Sweden, Peru and Australia

Tentative studies of Malaise trap samples from different geographic regions and habitats indicate unanimously that Winnertzia, a genus of mycophagous gall midges (Cecidomyiidae), is exceptionally speciose, but hard data in proof of that were previously unavailable. A taxonomic inventory of mycophagous cecidomyiids in Sweden has now revealed that, of 751 species found in total, 93 are Winnertzia. A preliminary census in 2013 had identified only 26 different Winnertzia in Sweden. Two factors are responsible for this increment: the inclusion of large amounts of fresh material to study and the application of a narrower species concept. The latter results from the reevaluation of male morphological characters in the light of COI sequence (DNA barcoding) data. With the inclusion of 37 new Winnertzia described here, the genus now contains 136 extant species. New Winnertzia discovered in Sweden are described here under the following names: W. acutistylus sp. nov., W. angustistylus sp. nov., W. arctostylus sp. nov., W. bicolor sp. nov., W. brachytarsus sp. nov., W. dentata sp. nov., W. egregia sp. nov., W. ekdalensis sp. nov., W. fraxinophila sp. nov., W. grytsjoenensis sp. nov., W. hamatula sp. nov., W. hemisphaerica sp. nov., W. imbecilla sp. nov., W. incisa sp. nov., W. inornata sp. nov., W. lapponica sp. nov., W. lobata sp. nov., W. longicoxa sp. nov., W. normalis sp. nov., W. oelandica sp. nov., W. ombergensis sp. nov., W. parvidens sp. nov., W. pilosistylus sp. nov., W. pratensis sp. nov., W. pustulatula sp. nov., W. quercinophila sp. nov., W. rickebasta sp. nov., W. ruliki sp. nov., W. serri sp. nov., W. setosa sp. nov., W. silvestris sp. nov., W. smalandensis sp. nov., W. sundini sp. nov., W. tumidoides sp. nov., and W. upplandensis sp. nov. Additionally, W. panguana sp. nov. is the first Winnertzia described from the Neotropical region (Peru), and W. warraensis sp. nov. is the first member of the genus described from the Australasian region (Tasmania). Parwinnertzia Felt, 1920 syn. nov. is revealed to be a junior synonym of Winnertzia Rondani, 1860, implying the recombinations of Winnertzia notmani (Felt) comb. nov. and Winnertzia italiana (Mamaev & Zaitzev) comb. nov. The intrageneric classification of Winnertzia is reviewed and developed further, with the W. setosa group introduced for species whose gonostylar claw is conspicuously long and exposed, and whose gonocoxal emargination is bordered by dense, large setae. Winnertzia feralis Mamaev, revived here from synonymy with W. tridens Panelius, and W. fusca Kieffer are new faunistic records in Sweden. Swedish records published in the past of W. brachypalpa Mamaev and W. pravdini Mamaeva & Mamaev rest on misidentifications, and both species are deleted from the Swedish checklist.