The superfamily Orthalicoidea comprises approximately 2,000 species of terrestrial gastropods, mostly concentrated in the Neotropics but also present in southern Africa and Oceania. We provide a ...multi-marker molecular phylogeny of this superfamily, reassessing its family- and genus-level classification. We exclude two families from the group, Odontostomidae and Vidaliellidae, transferring them to Rhytidoidea based on their phylogenetic relationships as recovered herein. Two new families are recognized herein as members of Orthalicoidea, Tomogeridae and Cyclodontinidae fam. nov. The family Megaspiridae and the subfamily Prestonellinae are paraphyletic but are retained herein for taxonomic stability. The subfamily Placostylinae is synonymized with Bothriembryontinae. The new genera Alterorhinus gen. nov. and Sanniostracus gen. nov. containing some Brazilian species are described here to better reflect the phylogeny. The fossil record and paleobiogeographic history of the group is explored under the new phylogenetic framework.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Although terrestrial gastropods are remarkably diverse, our knowledge of them is still lacking, especially for species from the Global South. As such, new tools to help researchers collect data on ...these organisms are very welcome. With this in mind, we investigated Brazilian observations on iNaturalist to assess the feasibility of the data available on the platform as a basis for studies on the tropical terrestrial gastropod fauna. The observations on iNaturalist were filtered by country, Brazil, and higher taxa, namely Eupulmonata, Cyclophoroidea and Helicinoidea, yielding a sample of 4,983 observations. These observations were then reviewed in search of records of rare or little-known species, species found outside their previously known range, and interesting ecological interactions. Exotic species made up 35% to 39% of the sampled iNaturalist records. The most commonly observed species were Lissachatina fulica (Bowdich, 1822), Bradybaena similaris (Férussac, 1822), Drymaeus papyraceus (Mawe, 1823), Drymaeus interpunctus (E. von Martens, 1887), Limacus flavus (Linnaeus, 1758), Meghimatium pictum (Stoliczka, 1873), Cornu aspersum (O. F. Müller, 1774), Vaginulus taunaisii (Férussac, 1821), Ovachlamys fulgens (Gude, 1900), and Bulimulus tenuissimus (Férussac, 1832). In total, 166 observations were deemed of interest to our purposes (e.g., rare species, range extensions, ecological interactions), totalling 46 identified species and 16 observations identified at genus level. Among the selected observations, we found pictures of live specimens of species that were previously known only from their shells, such as Megalobulimus pergranulatus (Pilsbry, 1901), bringing to light their appearances in life. Two potentially new species belonging to the genera Plekocheilus Guilding, 1827 and Megalobulimus K. Miller, 1878 were revealed. Additionally, we found records of living individuals of two species that were previously presumed to be possibly extinct, Leiostracus carnavalescus Simone & Salvador, 2016, and Gonyostomus egregius (Pfeiffer, 1845). We take the opportunity to discuss individual records of interest, evaluate the quality of the data and possible improvements, as well the potential and implications of the use of the iNaturalist platform for research in Brazil and other tropical countries. While iNaturalist has its limitations, it holds great potential to help document biodiversity in the tropics.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
There is broad recognition by practicing taxonomists that the field is going through a crisis, which has been dubbed the "taxonomic impediment". There are many aspects involved in said crisis, but ...publication practices in taxonomy are often neglected or relegated to the backseat. We provide an initial foray into this topic via a worldwide survey with taxonomists, spanning all botanical and zoological groups, and career stages. Demographically, most of the respondents identified themselves as males (70%), working in Europe or North America (68%), in universities (50%) or museums (27%). Over half of the respondents are established/late-career researchers (only about 25% of full professors were female), with a low number of early-career researchers and graduate students (i.e., taxonomists in training). Nearly 61% of the men acquired their highest title at least eleven years ago, while only 41% of the women did so. Nearly 92% of the respondents have published new species descriptions, while around 60% and 26% have synonymized, respectively, species-level or subspecies-level taxa. In general, respondents perceive the act of describing new species to be easier than synonymizing species (p = 0.05). Established/late-career researchers and male researchers, particularly in Oceania and North America, found it easier to publish nomenclatural acts such as new species descriptions, while early-career researchers had their acts contested more often. Our results reaffirm the low academic recognition of the field, the lack of funding for research and publishing charges especially in the Global South, and the difficulty in finding specialized outlets (and the low impact factor of those journals) as persistent issues in taxonomy. Other significant problems raised by respondents include ethical issues in the peer-review process, a bias against newcomers in the field coming either from established researchers or committees, and taxonomic vandalism.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Natural history collections are now being championed as key to broad ecological studies, especially those involving human impacts in the Anthropocene. However, collections are going through a crisis ...that threatens their present and future value, going beyond underfunding/understaffing to a more damaging practice: current researchers are no longer depositing material. This seems to be especially true for ecological studies that now benefit from historical collections, as those researchers are not trained to think about voucher specimens. We investigated indexed journals in Ecology and Zoology to assess if they have guidelines concerning voucher specimens. Only 4% of ecological journals presently encourage (but mostly do not require) voucher deposition, while 15% of zoological journals encourage it. In the first place, this goes contrary to scientific standards of reproducibility, since specimens are primary data. Secondly, this erodes the legacy we will leave for future researchers, because if this trend goes on unchecked, it will leave a massive gap in collections’ coverage, undermining the quality that is presently acclaimed. The scientific community needs a wakeup call to avoid impoverishing the future value of natural history collections. Training and changing researchers’ mindsets is essential, but that takes time. For the moment, we propose a stopgap measure: at the minimum, academic journals should encourage authors to deposit specimens in open collections, such as museums and universities.
For over 200 years, the name molluscum contagiosum-a dermatological disease-has unfairly associated molluscs (the second largest group of animals on the planet) with this highly contagious infectious ...disease. Herein, arguments are presented demonstrating the serious problem of continuing to use this name, including animal welfare concerns. Thus, to minimize any unnecessary impacts on the biodiversity and conservation of molluscs, we follow WHO best practices in naming diseases to suggest the use of the new term 'wpox' or 'water warts' as a synonym for molluscum contagiosum.
Abstract
Ecosystems provide benefits to humans, including provisioning, regulating, and cultural services. However, invasive species can threaten ecosystem well-functioning and services provided. One ...invasive species with such potential is the New Zealand mud snail (NZMS)
Potamopyrgus antipodarum
. The aims of this study are focused on the quantitative review of (1) the NZMS impacts on ecosystem properties and their direct links with ecosystem services, and (2) the ecosystem services that can be affected by the NZMS. The high density reached by this species in most of the invaded ecosystems and its highly competitive ability affect ecosystem structure and functioning. However, some facilitation processes on native species may result in an improvement of some services. The NZMS tends to positively affect cultural services (88% positive cases) but negatively to provisioning services (77% of cases). Regarding, regulating and maintenance services, the proportions of positive and negative effects were similar (45% vs 36%, respectively). Therefore, the NZMS is a species with numerous negative impacts on ecosystem services. However, ecosystem services related to health (e.g., dilution effect against parasites) and research (e.g., biomonitoring) are cultural services that the NZMS can improve. No economic assessment of the impacts of the NZMS is available in the literature.
The impacts of biological invasions remain poorly known for some habitats, regions and taxa. To date, there has been no comprehensive effort to review and synthesize the impacts of invasive mollusc ...species in South America. In this paper, we provide a synoptic view on what is known on documented socio-ecological impacts of aquatic no-native mollusc species (NNMS) and transplanted mollusc species (TMS) from South America. An expert group involving malacologists and taxonomists from different countries, the “South America Alien Molluscs Specialists” (eMIAS), shared and summarized the scientific literature, databases, and published and unpublished information on confirmed impacts of NNMS and TMS in South America. Three broad categories, non-mutually exclusive were used as a framework: “Environmental/Biodiversity impacts”, “Economic and social effects”, and “Human health impacts”. Some 21 NNMS and seven TMS have documented impacts on at least one of those three categories. We encourage targeting the less known areas of research, such as economic valuation of human health (and veterinary) impacts attributable to NNMS or TMS and expand our knowledge of environmental impacts for the species listed in this study.
Objective
Data concerning the surgical treatment of lumbosacral plexus tumors (LSPTs) is scarce. This study aims to present our experience with a series of 19 patients surgically treated for ...symptomatic LSPTs at our institution.
Methods
This is a retrospective study of 19 patients surgically treated for symptomatic LSPTs from 2011 to 2019. Clinical data were retrieved from medical records and consisted of age, gender, clinical presentation, location of the lesion, surgical approach, final histopathologic diagnosis, follow-up time, outcomes, and complications.
Results
Nineteen surgical procedures were conducted. Thirteen patients were female and six, male. The median age of patients was 45 years (range 20 to 63 years). No patients harbored genetic syndromes. Surgical treatment appears to be correlated to the reduction of pain in patients with peripheral nerve sheath tumors (PNSTs), as assessed by visual analog scale (VAS). Sixteen patients did not present with new-onset deficits during follow-up (84.2%), two of whom recovered from their preoperative deficit. Four patients presented with postoperative weakness. The histopathological diagnoses were 11 schwannomas, four neurofibromas, three metastases, and one lymphoma.
Conclusions
LSPTs are rare. When surgical treatment is indicated, it usually requires multidisciplinary management. Surgery appears to be effective concerning the reduction of pain in PNSTs and may also recover neurological deficits. Iatrogenic neurological deficits are an evident risk, such that intraoperative multimodal monitoring should always be performed if available. In lesions involving the sacral plexus, we found it to be indispensable.
Circular economy as a driver to sustainable businesses Barros, Murillo Vetroni; Salvador, Rodrigo; do Prado, Guilherme Francisco ...
Cleaner environmental systems,
June 2021, 2021-06-00, 2021-06-01, Letnik:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Circular economy can play an important role towards sustainable business management and it can be seen all throughout an organization. Although the current literature regards the circular economy as ...a guide for more sustainable business models, it is not clear the main implications to key business areas. Therefore this study aimed to present the key impacts of circular economy practices within different business areas that help guide a sustainable management of businesses. To that end, it was identified, by means of a systematic review of the existing literature, the business areas impacted by circular economy practices within an organization. The business areas identified were strategic planning, cost management, supply chain management, quality management, environmental management, process management, logistics and reverse logistics, service management, and research and development, allowing a discussion on the main contributions of the circular economy to each area. A key-impact map was provided summarizing the most influential changes in each area that assist in the management of businesses towards greater sustainability. It is important that organizations understand and accurately internalize circularity principles within their strategic plan. On that note, adopting a circular thinking might enable an organization to obtain more sustainable (economic) results while reducing impacts.
Display omitted
•Main business areas influenced by circular economy practices are identified.•Key implications of circular economy practices to business management are presented.•Organizational culture is key to promoting or hindering circular economy initiatives.
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