Nitzschia anatoliensis sp. nov., a cryptic diatom species from the highly alkaline Van Lake (Turkey)

In this article we describe Nitzschia anatoliensis Górecka, Gastineau & Solak sp. nov., an example of a diatom species inhabiting extreme habitats. The new species has been isolated and successfully grown from the highly alkaline Van Lake in East Turkey. The description is based on morphology (light and scanning electron microscopy), the sequencing of its organellar genomes and several molecular phylogenies. This species could easily be overlooked because of its extreme similarity to Nitzschia aurariae but molecular phylogenies indicate that they are only distantly related. Furthermore, molecular data suggest that N. anatoliensis may occur in several alkaline lakes of Asia Minor and Siberia, but was previously misidentified as Nitzschia communis. It also revealed the very close genetic proximity between N. anatoliensis and the endosymbiont of the dinotom Kryptoperidinium foliaceum, providing additional clues on what might have been the original species of diatoms to enter symbiosis.

Increased grazing drives homogenisation but reduced grazing increases turnover in upland habitat mosaics

Many ecosystems are grazed by livestock or large, wild herbivores and exist as mosaics of different vegetation communities. Changing grazing could have an impact on heterogeneity as well as on composition. A long-term, large-scale grazing experiment that maintained existing low-intensity sheep grazing, tripled it, removed it and partially substituted sheep grazing by cattle grazing was set up on a mosaic of upland vegetation types. The impact of changing grazing regimes was assessed in terms of changes in temporal and spatial species and functional beta diversity. Removal of grazing had the highest impact on species replacement, whilst increased grazing was closest to maintaining the original species complement. Wet heath and Molina mire had the lowest turnover, but wet heath showed the highest changes in unidirectional abundance as it contained species capable of increasing in abundance in response to changing grazing intensity. Agrostis-Festuca and Nardus grasslands displayed the highest level of balanced species replacement reflecting their more dynamic vegetation. In functional terms, there was no clear separation of communities based on their grazing preference, all were relatively resistant to change but Nardus grassland was the most resistant to the removal of grazing. The increased offtake associated with increased grazing led to a degree of homogenisation as grazing tolerant species associated with preferred communities increased in the unpreferred ones. Decisions about grazing management of the uplands involve many trade-offs, and this study identified potential trade-offs between stability and homogenisation to add to existing ones on the biodiversity of different groups of species and on ecosystem services.

Systematics of Problepsis wiltshirei (Prout, 1938), comb. nov. (Lepidoptera, Geometridae, Sterrhinae) – an endemic species to the Zagros Mountains in the Middle East

Within Iran, the Zagros Mountains show high biodiversity, with a wealth of endemic species. One of these is the geometrid moth Somatina wiltshirei Prout, 1938, originally described from Iran and Iraq. In the present study, one mitochondrial and up to nine protein-coding nuclear gene regions were used along with a comparative morphological examination to investigate the systematic position of this species. The results support the reclassification of this species as Problepsis wiltshireicomb. nov. Since the original species description is superficial, we provide a re-description supported by rich illustrations of morphological characters and distribution. In addition, Problepsis wiltshireicomb. nov. is reported as a new species for the fauna of Turkey. The importance of the habitat for the conservation of this species is discussed.

Algorithms for connecting scientific names with literature in the Biodiversity Heritage Library via the Global Names Project and Catalogue of Life

Being able to quickly find and access original species descriptions is essential for efficiently conducting taxonomic research. Linking scientific name queries to the original species description is challenging and requires taxonomic intelligence because on average there are an estimated three scientific names associated with each currently accepted species, and many historical scientific names have fallen into disuse from being synonymized or forgotten. Additionally, non-standard usage of journal abbreviations can make it difficult to automatically disambiguate bibliographic citations and ascribe them to the correct publication. The largest open access resource for biodiversity literature is the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), which was built by a consortium of natural history institutions and contains over 200,000 digitized volumes of natural history publications spanning hundreds of years of biological research. Catalogue of Life (CoL) is the largest aggregator of scientific names globally, publishing an annual checklist of currently accepted scientific names and their historical synonyms. TaxonWorks is an integrative web-based workbench that facilitates collaboration on biodiversity informatics research between scientists and developers. The Global Names project has been collaborating with BHL, TaxonWorks, and CoL to develop a Global Names Index that links all of these services together by finding scientific names in BHL and using the taxonomic intelligence provided by CoL to conveniently link directly to the page referenced in BHL. The Global Names Index is continuously updated as metadata is improved and digitization technologies advance to provide more accurate optical character recognition (OCR) of scanned texts. We developed an open source tool, “BHLnames,” and launched a restful application programming interface (API) service with a freely available Javascript widget that can be embedded on any website to link scientific names to literature citations in BHL. If no bibliographic citation is provided, the widget will link to the oldest name usage in BHL, which often is the original species description. The BHLnames widget can also be used to browse all mentions of a scientific name and its synonyms in BHL, which could make the tool more broadly useful for studying the natural history of any species.

Simulation of Potential Suitable Distribution of Original Species of Fritillariae Cirrhosae Bulbus in China Under Climate Change Scenarios

Fritillariae Cirrhosae Bulbus (FCB) is a famous traditional Chinese medicine, mainly used for relieving cough and resolving phlegm. According to Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2020), the medicine comes from dried bulbs of five species and one variety in Fritillaria. Due to climate change and human disturbance, the wild resources have become critically endangered in recent years. Following three climate change scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) under 2050s and 2070s, geographic information technology (GIS) and maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) were used to simulate the ecological suitability of FCB, a third-grade rare and endangered medicinal plant species. The results showed that the key environmental variables affecting the distribution of were altitude, human activity intensity, and mean temperature of coldest quarter. Under current climate situation, the highly suitable areas were mainly located in the east of Qinghai Tibet Plateau, including Western Sichuan, southeastern Tibet, southern Gansu, Northwestern Yunnan and Eastern Qinghai, with a total area of 31.47×104 km2, the area within the nature reserve was 7.13×104 km2, indicating that there was a large protection gap. Under the future climate change scenarios, the areas of the highly and poorly suitable areas of FCB showed a decreasing trend, while the areas of the moderately and total suitable areas showed a increasing trend. The geometric center of the total suitable area of the medicine will move to the northwest. The results could provide a strategic guidance for protection，development and utilization of FCB though its prediction of potential distribution based on the key variables of climate change.

On the relationships between rarity, uniqueness, distinctiveness, originality and functional/phylogenetic diversity

Rarity reflects the low abundance of a species while distinctiveness reflects its quality of being easy to recognize because it has unique functional characteristics and/or an isolated phylogenetic position. As such, the assemblage-level rarity of a species' functional and phylogenetic characteristics (that we name 'effective originality') results from both the rarity and the distinctiveness of this species. The functional and phylogenetic diversity of an assemblage then results from a compromise between the abundances and the effective originalities of the species it contains. Although the distinctiveness of a species itself depends on the abundance of the other species in the assemblage, distinctiveness indices that are available in the ecological literature scarcely consider abundance data. We develop a unifying framework that demonstrates the direct connections between measures of diversity, rarity, distinctiveness and effective originality. While developing our framework, we discovered a family of distinctiveness indices that permit a full control of the influence one wants to give to the strict uniqueness of a species (=its smallest functional or phylogenetic distance to another species in the assemblage). Illustrating our framework with bat phylogenetic diversity along a disturbance gradient in Mexico, we show how each component of rarity, distinctiveness and originality can be controlled to obtain efficient indicators for conservation. Overall our framework is aimed to improve conservation actions directed towards highly diverse areas and/or towards species whose loss would considerably decrease biodiversity by offering flexible quantitative tools where the influence of abundant versus rare, and ordinary versus original, species is understood and controlled.

Authenticity test of the processed meat products

Different and related approaches must be considered to address consumers' concerns regarding the identification of species involved, mainly those of manufactured and derived meat products such as cured and canned meat and canned sausage. Therefore, the development of molecular techniques has been achieved by a mixture containing different shares of meat DNA. This study provided an important indication regarding the validity of the multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique in such tests. Based on the fact that the aforementioned method is qualitative; yet, the different percentages of meat DNA contained in the mixtures cannot be determined. Our current study showed that tracing back the origin of the ingredients used in food production is achievable, even if the DNA is degraded as a result of the food transformation processes. A PCR test was conducted at 35 cycles for mixtures at 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25% levels. Our results indicated that the original species of the meat products used were accurately determined in all mixtures tested by PCR technique. Therefore, we concluded that the PCR technique can be useful as a fast, easy to perform, and reliable control for adulterated consumer meat products.

The establishment of bessarabian scenographic art in the modern period

From time immemorial by practicing customs and rites in their collective forms of manifestation, the inhabitants of the Mioritic space felt the need for theatrical representations, where rudimentary elements with a spectacular character can be discerned. This cultural spirituality background, emanating across centuries, favored the establishment of a dramatic art much cherished by the natives. Thereby, the distant origins of theatrical art are to be found in the depths of the mythological and folkloric substratum of our nation, the materialization of myths and magical rituals fueling its subsequent evolution. Namely, the popular theater has inscribed in the traditional Romanian culture an original species of folklore that leads to the discovery and knowledge of the evolution of the theatrical image, to the reconstruction of archaic theatrical visions and the valorization of this cultural heritage. All the performances could not but be dressed in the guise of a scenography, supported by the ensemble of stage costume. Although the performances were often played on improvised stages, they were not without scenery and stage arrangement. Gradually, these enactments evolve and acquire full-fledged forms and features of a professional scenography.

Ecological and genetic characteristics of «yellow» wagtail hybrids

The paper examines ecological and genetic characteristics of hybrids of yellow wagtails: yellow white-eared wagtail Motacilla flava beema and yellow-fronted wagtail Motacilla lutea . At present, in the zone of contact between closely related forms of yellow wagtails, a system of their spatial and reproductive interaction with each other has been formed under conditions of wide sympatry. This interaction is manifested in the existence and maintenance in the population samples of three components of their genetic system: the genotypes M. flava , M. lutea , and the light-headed hybrid form M. f. beema M. lutea . The new data obtained significantly supplement the understanding of the intraspecific interaction of three forms: M. flava , M. lutea , and the light-headed hybrid form M. f. beema M. lutea . Light-headed hybrids M. f. beema M. lutea have their own specific stable characters at different levels: morphological, behavioral, and molecular genetic as confirmation of the genetic interaction existing in natural populations between the two species, which is an interspecies mechanism for maintaining their structure. In the zone of contact between M. flava and M. lutea , unlimited hybridization of these species occurs and mixed pairs are formed. In this case, the isolation of light-headed hybrid forms with a characteristic manifestation of various groups of characters: morphological - the color of the plumage of the head; genetic - distinguishing light-headed hybrids from the original species ( M. flava and M. lutea ). This phenomenon can act as a mechanism for maintaining the integrity of the species of yellow wagtails - both the yellow wagtail M. flava and the yellow-fronted wagtail M. lutea due to the constantly occurring interspecific hybridization in areas of wide sympatry within a single polytypic complex.