Obituaries: PETER VOGEL, 1942-2015 Sarà, Maurizio; Haberl, Werner
Folia zoologica (Brno),
10/2018, Letnik:
67, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
An obituary for professor Peter Vogel, a commission member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission(SSC) ITSES, and the Insectivore Specialist Group is ...presented. Vogel's wide research interests ranged from development and reproductive biology to physiology of hibernation and competition, using small mammals as models. He was a fine naturalist and excellent field ecologist, skilled to build an experimental design to study dormice hibernation in his cottage garden.
An obituary for Roderick Murray Baxter who played a prominent role in research on Southern African small mammal biology since his studies at the University of Natal in South Africa, is presented. He ...was born on Aug. 27, 1951 in Irene near Pretoria, Union of South Africa. He is remembered by his colleagues as a bright, intelligent, and dynamic young man with a wide interest and true passion, as well as his empathy and compassion for his fellows. Teaching and wellbeing of his students was his another passion of Baxter. He was in the position to change lives for the better as an academic.
The food remains of Neomys fodiens (particularly trichopteran larvae, Gastropoda and Amphibia) found on the banks of ponds and small creeks in Lower Austria are described. Characteristic bite marks, ...the manner of opening the cases and shells, as well as data on feeding patterns are presented. Food caches mainly consisted of caddis fly larvae and snails, but also contained non-palatable items which shrews apparently had confused with real prey and retrieved. The composition of the caches varied seasonally, showing a marked mid-summer decline and a shift in the proportion of Trichoptera and Mollusca in late summer and autumn. Shrews employed particular methods when breaking snail shells and opening caddis fly cases, and in the consumption of vertebrate carcasses.
We sampled small mammal assemblage in a mosaic of Valley Thicket vegetation in the Great Fish River Reserve during the summers of 2001 and 2002. Assemblage was dominated by seven rodent species with ...a single nonrodent species (Elephantulus edwardii) in the 357 trapped specimens. Rhabdomys dilectus was the most abundant in both years, followed by Mus minutoides (ranking 2nd in 2001) and Mastomys coucha (2nd in 2002). These three species, which are widespread generalists, made up 85.0% of the total rodent catch in 2001 and 74.3% in 2002. Individual species were captured on 2-14 sites of a total of 17 and M. minutoides was the most widespread. The majority of samples consisted of two (ten sites in a pooled sample for 2 years) or three species (ten sites). Significant morphological structuring was found only in two-species samples. Species turnover was high both among sites and between the 2 years. We found no evidence of significant nested structure which would suggest hierarchical sets of ecological relationships among the species. Vegetation structure explained better than species interactions, the population variables in the rodent assemblage.
Taxonomy of thicket rats (Grammomys) is highly provisional and the genus is in a critical need of a thorough revision. We compared G. cometes from Eastern Cape Province (n = 150) with G. ibeanus, G. ...macmillani, and the southern African G. dolichurus, applying analyses of a partial cytochrome-b (Cytb) sequence (375 base pairs), karyotypes, and cranial morphology. Genetically, G. cometes appeared to be very close to G. dolichurus (mean sequence divergence of 3.4% ± 0.8% SE), whereas G. ibeanus and G. macmillani were separated by a mean sequence divergence of 5.4% ± 1.2%. Nucleotide diversity among haplotypes was higher in G. dolichurus (π = 0.0080 ± 0.0010 SD) than in G. cometes (π = 0.0040 ± 0.0009). G. cometes and G. dolichurus showed the same diploid chromosome number (2N = 52) of mostly acrocentric autosomes. None of the karyotypes reported so far for various Grammomys species match the chromosomal sets we found in Eastern Cape Province. Discriminant function analysis on 5 cranial measurements that are not affected by age variation was successful in separating G. cometes and G. ibeanus, but G. dolichurus appeared very similar to the former. In spite of their close genetic and morphological proximity, G. cometes and G. dolichurus tend toward ecological segregation and behave as distinct biological species. G. cometes is endemic to the southern African subregion and the 4 Eastern Cape Province localities are possibly isolates. Specimens were caught in the Afromontane forest above 1,000 m elevation and the lowland riverine forests dominated by Combretum caffra.
Phylogenetic relationships among 8 species of white-toothed shrews (Crocidurinae, Mammalia) in East and Central Asia were evaluated based on mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene sequences. The taxon ...formerly regarded as Crocidura suaveolens in East Asia phylogenetically is distinct from that of true C. suaveolens in Europe, suggesting that specimens in East Asia should be considered a distinct species, C. shantungensis. All shrews from Central Asia were regarded as C. sibirica, although phylogenetic comparison with the unsampled C. gmelini is needed to confirm its taxonomic status. C. shantungensis, C. suaveolens, and C. sibirica formed a well-supported monophyletic group. C. dsinezumi, C. lasiura, C. kurodai, and C. watasei also formed a well-supported monophyletic group. Within C. dsinezumi, there were 2 clusters, referable to western and eastern Japan. Based on low genetic divergence, C. dsinezumi on Cheju and Hokkaido islands appear to be the result of a recent introduction from western Japan and northern-eastern Honshu, respectively.
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