The ant genus Strumigenys Smith, 1860 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in western North America North of Mexico

Strumigenys is a globally distributed genus of mostly cryptic leaf-litter ants. In North America they are common throughout eastern deciduous forests but become increasingly rare to the west. Here I review the Strumigenys fauna of western North America north of the Mexico border including all states west of the eastern border of Texas. Six new native species with ranges entirely within this region are described: S. collinsae sp. nov., S. macgowni sp. nov., S. mendezi sp. nov., S. moreauviae sp. nov., S. lucky sp. nov., and S. subtilis sp. nov. Strumigenys ananeotes Longino & Booher 2019 is given a more thorough description, and S. alberti Forel 1893, a Neotropical species, is reported from the region for the first time. All new species bear clear morphological relationships with a native North American clade of “smithistrumiform” species. I include species accounts and provide an illustrated key for all species of this region.

Areas of Endemism of Selected Seed Plants in Southcentral and Southwestern USA

Areas of endemism (AEs) are fundamental entities of analysis in biogeography and a key step for biogeographical regionalization. Even though many studies have contributed to the biogeographical knowledge of southern USA flora, no endemicity analysis (EA) has been conducted that would include a large number of native seed plant species from different families. A new analysis of plant spatial patterns is important as a first step for a future updated floristic regionalization of North America North of Mexico. It has become easier to accomplish owing to the increased availability of large-scale digitized distributional data and statistical methods of biogeographic analysis. Here we identify the AEs in SC/SW USA using digitized plant specimen data available from IDigBio. We built a database with 81,851-specimen point records of 400 selected mostly angiosperm species and applied the NDM/VNDM method of endemicity analysis. We then compare the established 26 AEs in the area of study with the floristic provinces in two comparatively recent regionalization systems of USA. To understand the spatial patterns, we also pay attention to the information on relationships of the endemic species found in phylogenetic literature.

Additions and corrections to The Wild Orchids of North America, North of Mexico. II

The Wild Orchids of North America, North of Mexico (Brown & Folsom 2003) has served as an illustrated and annotated checklist of the orchids of that region. In the years since research was completed for that work, many new taxa have been described, as well as other pertinent facts published that required five corrections to the original manuscript. In Part I, those additions and corrections, including literature references and photographs, were presented to enable the reader to update this volume to the end of 2005. This current paper contains additions, emendations, and eight new combinations through March 2020.

A Taxonomic Revision of Nearctic Conostigmus (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea: Megaspilidae)

We revise the species of Conostigmus Dahlbom, 1858 (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea: Megaspilidae) found in North America, north of Mexico. We describe the following 12 new species: Conostigmus dessarti Trietsch & Mikó sp. nov.; C. duncani Trietsch sp. nov.; C. franzinii Trietsch & Mikó sp. nov.; C. johnsoni Trietsch & Mikó sp. nov.; C. lepus Trietsch sp. nov.; C. longiharpes Trietsch sp. nov.; C. michaeli Trietsch sp. nov.; C. minimus Trietsch & Mikó sp. nov.; C. muratorei Trietsch sp. nov.; C. musettiae Trietsch & Mikó sp. nov.; C. rosemaryae Trietsch sp. nov.; and C. washburni Trietsch sp. nov. We also redescribe the following 12 species: Conostigmus abdominalis (Boheman, 1832); C. bipunctatus Kieffer, 1907; C. dimidiatus (Thomson, 1858); C. erythrothorax (Ashmead, 1893); C. laeviceps (Ashmead, 1893); C. muesebecki Dessart & Masner, 1965; C. nigrorufus Dessart, 1997; C. obscurus (Thomson, 1858); C. orcasensis (Brues, 1909); C. pulchellus Whittaker, 1930; C. quadratogenalis Dessart & Cooper, 1975; and C. triangularis (Thomson, 1858). We report specimens of C. abdominalis (Boheman, 1832) and C. bipunctatus Kieffer, 1907 from the Nearctic for the first time, expanding the range from Palearctic to Holarctic for both species. We regard the following 19 species as having uncertain status due to reasons such as missing type specimens: Conostigmus ambiguus (Ashmead, 1893); C. bacilliger (Kieffer, 1906); C. bakeri Kieffer, 1908; C. californicus (Ashmead, 1893); C. canadensis (Ashmead,1888); C. crawfordi (Mann, 1920); C. harringtoni (Ashmead, 1888); C. hyalinipennis (Ashmead, 1887); C. inermis (Kieffer, 1906); C. integriceps (Kieffer, 1906); C. marylandicus (Ashmead, 1893); C. nevadensis (Kieffer, 1906); C. nigripes (Kieffer, 1906); C. ottawensis (Ashmead, 1888); C. pergandei (Ashmead, 1893); C. popenoei (Ashmead, 1893); C. rufoniger (Provancher, 1888); C. schwarzi (Ashmead, 1893); and C. trapezoidus Kieffer, 1908. We transfer Conostigmus arietinus (Provancher, 1887) to Dendrocerus Ratzeburg, 1852, and consider Conostigmus subinermis (Kieffer, 1907) to be absent from the Nearctic and limited to the Palearctic. The Nearctic species C. timberlakei Kamal, 1926 remains incertae sedis. We provide the name Conostigmus fulgidus Mikό and Trietsch to replace the junior homonym Conostigmus lucidus Mikό and Trietsch 2016. We provide a key for the identification of Nearctic Conostigmus species, and provide comments on their natural history. Finally, we infer evolutionary relationships within Megaspilinae using male genitalia and other morphological characters. This work represents the first in-depth study and revision of Conostigmus in North America, and contributes the first annotated identification key to Nearctic Conostigmus species.

A Nonmodal Instability Perspective of the Declining Northern Midlatitude Synoptic Variability in Boreal Summer

The Pacific–North America–North Atlantic sector in general experienced a dryer and warmer climate in summer during the past 40 years. These changes are partly associated with declining midlatitude synoptic variability in boreal summer, especially over the two ocean basins. A nonmodal instability analysis of the boreal summer background flow is conducted for two periods, 1979–94 and 2000–15, to understand dynamical processes potentially responsible for the observed decline of synoptic variability. The synoptic variability associated with fast, nonmodal growth of atmospheric disturbances shows a decline over northern midlatitudes in the later period, in both a barotropic model and a two-level quasigeostrophic model. These results highlight the importance of the changing summer background flow in contributing to the observed changes in synoptic variability. Also discussed are factors likely associated with background flow changes including sea surface temperature and sea ice change.

Genomics of a complete butterfly continent

Never before have we had the luxury of choosing a continent, picking a large phylogenetic group of animals, and obtaining genomic data for its every species. Here, we sequence all 845 species of butterflies recorded from North America north of Mexico. Our comprehensive approach reveals the pattern of diversification and adaptation occurring in this phylogenetic lineage as it has spread over the continent, which cannot be seen on a sample of selected species. We observe bursts of diversification that generated taxonomic ranks: subfamily, tribe, subtribe, genus, and species. The older burst around 70 Mya resulted in the butterfly subfamilies, with the major evolutionary inventions being unique phenotypic traits shaped by high positive selection and gene duplications. The recent burst around 5 Mya is caused by explosive radiation in diverse butterfly groups associated with diversification in transcription and mRNA regulation, morphogenesis, and mate selection. Rapid radiation correlates with more frequent introgression of speciation-promoting and beneficial genes among radiating species. Radiation and extinction patterns over the last 100 million years suggest the following general model of animal evolution. A population spreads over the land, adapts to various conditions through mutations, and diversifies into several species. Occasional hybridization between these species results in accumulation of beneficial alleles in one, which eventually survives, while others become extinct. Not only butterflies, but also the hominids may have followed this path.

Yellow Sugarcane Aphid, Sipha flava (Forbes) (Insecta: Heteroptera: Aphididae)

The yellow sugarcane aphid, Sipha flava (Forbes), was described from Illinois by Forbes in 1884. Originally referred to as the 'sorghum aphis' and placed in the genus Chaitophorus (Forbes 1884), it was later moved into the genus Sipha (Davis 1909). Sipha includes 12 species of grass feeders, at least four of which occur in North America north of Mexico. The yellow sugarcane aphid causes damage to sorghum, sugarcane and several species of pasture grass (Median-Gaud et al. 1965, Kindler and Dalrymple 1999). This document is EENY-354, one of a series of the Entomology and Nematology Department, UF/IFAS Extension. Original publication date August 2005. EENY354/IN635: Yellow Sugarcane Aphid, Sipha flava (Forbes) (Insecta: Hemiptera: Aphididae) (ufl.edu)