Abstract
The cosmetids are conspicuous harvestmen, remarkably diverse in size, shape and colour. However, the effectiveness of all these morphological traits for diagnosing groups is scarcely ...explored in the literature. Since the early 20th century, the family Cosmetidae has been divided into two subfamilies, Cosmetinae and Discosomaticinae, and there has been no further effort to delimit additional or alternative subfamilial groups.
In this analysis, we aim to test the issue of the basal dichotomy of Cosmetinae and Discosomaticinae. Thus, we propose a more comprehensive phylogenetic analysis using both parsimony and Bayesian approach, comprising 103 terminals of Cosmetidae, plus seven outgroup terminals scored for 130 morphological characters. Discosomaticinae is revisited and all its species were included in our matrix. To offer a real challenge to the monophyly of Discosomaticinae, members of 36 genera of Cosmetinae have also been scored. Our results support neither Cosmetinae nor Discosomaticinae sensu Pickard-Cambridge/Roewer as monophyletic groups. We found that Cosmetidae may be organized into a few major clades, which are here diagnosed. Accordingly, taxonomic changes in the arrangement of the family are introduced: description of one new tribe, five new subfamilies and revalidation of a sixth, description of three new genera, and proposition of synonymies, transfers and revalidations at generic level.
The scientific community has been developing and refining digital data standards to ensure that biodiversity data can be easily exchanged between different databases, systems and institutions. ...However, scientists still face the challenge of effectively analysing this vast amount of data. Variations in the quality, documentation and availability of metadata often make it difficult for scientists to compile appropriate datasets for their research. One contribution towards this task is the research data repository ARAMOB of the Arachnologische Gesellschaft (AraGes), which focuses on systematically collected data on spider assemblages. Mandatory requirements have been developed to ensure the quality and utility of the data for ecological research during a given project. A next step towards enhancing the data basis for convincing analyses of spider assemblages in Central Europe is the offer to now publish data in the society's open access journal Arachnologische Mitteilungen/Arachnology Letters, which are integrated into the data repository and thus made effectively accessible and usable. These data papers will be presented as one printed page in the journal, accessible on the website of the AraGes and from the BioOne Digital Library, accompanied by a PDF-document containing metadata to effectively use the published data. The original dataset is published as spreadsheet tables, but also deposited in the ARAMOB data repository, which is managed with the modularized database software and virtual research environment Diversity Workbench. By this means, the published data packages are also accessible and analysable within a wider context through the ARAMOB web portal. On request, scientists can also exploit data with the free and well-documented Diversity Workbench software tools. The data pipelines involved are defined in the context of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). Mit Beginn des digitalen Zeitalters haben Wissenschaftler Datenstandards entwickelt und verfeinert, um sicherzustellen, dass Biodiversitätsdaten zwischen verschiedenen Datenbanken, Systemen und Institutionen ausgetauscht werden können. Es stellt jedoch immer noch eine Herausforderung dar, umfangreiche Datenmengen aus verschiedenen Quellen aufzunehmen und für effektive Analysen in Datenspeicher zu übertragen. Unterschiede in der Qualität und Dokumentation (Verfügbarkeit von Metadaten) erschweren es Wissenschaftlern häufig, geeignete Datensätze für ihre Auswertungen zusammenzustellen. Einen Beitrag zu dieser Aufgabe leistet das Forschungsdatenrepositorium ARAMOB der Arachnologischen Gesellschaft (AraGes), das sich auf systematisch erhobene Daten zu Spinnenzönosen konzentriert. Verbindliche Anforderungen zur Sicherstellung von Qualität und Nutzbarkeit der Daten für ökologische Forschung wurden in einem vorausgegangenen Projekt formuliert. Ein nächster Schritt, um die Datenbasis für fundierte Analysen von Spinnenzönosen in Mitteleuropa zu verbessern, ist nun das Angebot der Publikation von Daten in der frei zugänglichen Vereinszeitschrift Arachnologische Mitteilungen/Arachnology Letters, die in das Datenrepositorium integriert und damit effektiv zugänglich und nutzbar gemacht werden. Die als data paper veröffentlichten Daten werden auf einer Druckseite der Zeitschrift präsentiert, die auf den AraGes Webseiten und in der BioOne Digital Library öffentlich zugänglich ist. Dieser Artikel wird von einem zweiten PDF-Dokument, das die Metadaten zur effektiven Nutzung der veröffentlichten Daten enthält, sowie den Originaldaten in Tabellenform ergänzt. Die Daten werden im ARAMOB Datenrepositorium hinterlegt, das mit der modularen Datenbanksoftware und virtuellen Forschungsumgebung Diversity Workbench gemanagt wird. Über das ARAMOB-Web-portal sind die veröffentlichten Datenpakete somit auch in einem breiteren Kontext zugänglich und analysierbar. Mitglieder der AraGes können darüber hinaus Daten mit den frei verfügbaren und gut dokumentierten Diversity Workbench Software-Tools erschließen. Die beteiligten Datenpipelines sind im Kontext der Initiative der Nationalen Forschungsdateninfrastruktur (NFDI) definiert.
The wolf spider (Lycosidae Sundevall, 1833) genus Artoria Thorell, 1877 is revised for New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Australia, to include 34 species, 21 of which are new to ...science: A.albopilata (Urquhart, 1893), A.alta Framenau 2004, A.beaury sp. n. , A.barringtonensis sp. n. , A.belfordensis sp. n. , A.berenice (L. Koch, 1877), A.bondi sp. n. , A.booderee sp. n. , A.comleroi sp. n. , A.corowa sp. n. , A.equipalus sp. n. , A.extraordinaria sp. n. , A.flavimana Simon, 1909, A.gloriosa (Rainbow, 1920), A.grahammilledgei sp. n. , A.helensmithae sp. n. , A.howquaensis Framenau, 2002, A.kanangra sp. n. , A.kerewong sp. n. , A.lineata (L. Koch, 1877), A.maroota sp. n. , A.mckayi Framenau, 2002, A.mungo sp. n. , A.munmorah sp. n. , A.myallensis sp. n. , A.quadrata Framenau, 2002, A.slatyeri sp. n. , A.strepera sp. n. , A.taeniifera Simon, 1909, A.terania sp. n. , A.triangularis Framenau, 2002, A.ulrichi Framenau, 2002, A.victoriensis Framenau, Gotch & Austin, 2006, and A.wilkiei sp. n. Lycosapruinosa L. Koch, 1877, currently listed in Artoria , is considered a nomen dubium. Artoria are largely forest dwellers, although some species have preferences for more open areas such as riparian or coastal environments or grasslands. Consequently, the genus mainly occurs east and west along the Great Dividing Range, although some species can be found into the Riverina, Cobar Peneplain and Darling Riverine Plains IBRA regions to the west.
Morphological structures and extended phenotypes are made possible by materials that are encoded by the genome. Nearly all biomaterials are viscoelastic, which means that to understand performance, ...one must understand the strain rate-dependent properties of these materials in relevant ecological interactions, as the behavior of a material can vary dramatically and rapidly. Spider silks are an example of materials whose properties vary substantially intra- and inter-specifically. Here, we focus on aggregate silk, which functions as a biological adhesive. As a case study to understand how a material manifests from genome through organism to ecology, we highlight moth-specialist spiders, the Cyrtarachninae, and their glues as an ideal experimental system to investigate the relationship between genomics and ecologically variable performance of a biological material. There is a clear eco-evolutionary innovation that Cyrtarachne akirai and related species have evolved, a unique trait not found in other spiders, a glue which overcomes the scales of moths. By examining traditional orb-weavers, C. akirai and other subfamily members using biomechanical testing and genomic analysis, we argue that we can track the evolution of this novel bioadhesive and comment on the selection pressures influencing prey specialization. The importance of the ecological context of materials testing is exemplified by the poor performance of C. akirai glue on glass and the exceptional spreading ability and adhesive strength on moths. The genetic basis for these performance properties is experimentally tractable because spider silk genes are minimally pleiotropic and advances in genomic technologies now make possible the discovery of complete silk gene sequences.
This Special Issue contains an editorial and ten papers on a range of fundamental and applied topics within the area of spider ecology and behaviour with one paper on biological control, seven papers ...on fundamental topics within the broad areas of ecology and behaviour, and two papers focusing on novel methodologies for studying spider behaviour.
Fossils from the mid-Cretaceous (c. 99 Ma) Myanmar (Burma) amber include all extant orders of Arachnida, including the earliest representatives of Schizomida, Parasitiformes, and Palpigradi. ...Schizomids are figured from Burmese amber herein for the first time. The most abundant and diverse arachnid order is the Araneae, with 38 families, 93 genera, and 165 species recorded to date. The araneofauna is dominated by haplogynes and palpimanoids, whilst araneoids are rare and members of the RTA clade absent. The arachnofauna is typical of a tropical rainforest habitat, which concurs with evidence from other Burmese amber biota.
A review of the biography and scientific contributions of S. V. Pogrebnyak (1961–2016), a scientist in the field of zoology, who devoted his entire life to studying biotic diversity, in particular ...arthropods and mollusks. Sviatoslav Pogrebnyak after graduating from the Biological Faculty of the University of Kyiv (1987) worked in different positions at different departments of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, including the Insti-tute of Zoology and the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). Sviatoslav published more then 30 sci-entific works, including two catalogues of NMNH collections. He described several animal species new for the science, carried out a number of expert studies on the effects of hydro- and industrial constructions on natural complexes, investigated the specifics of mite assemblages in industrial orchards, and amassed a significant number of biological samples for natural collections. Such significant events in the life of the museum as the appearance and development of the National Museum’s website, server, and computer network, as well as the creation of electronic catalogues of museum collections occurred thanks to Dr. Pogrebnyak.
PDF
