Search results for "CAPE"

Give me a sample of air and I will tell which species are found from your region : Molecular identification of fungi from airborne spore samples

2017

Fungi are a megadiverse group of organisms, they play major roles in ecosystem functioning and are important for human health, food production and nature conservation. Our knowledge on fungal diversity and fungal ecology is however still very limited, in part because surveying and identifying fungi is time demanding and requires expert knowledge. We present a method that allows anyone to generate a list of fungal species likely to occur in a region of interest, with minimal effort and without requiring taxonomical expertise. The method consists of using a cyclone sampler to acquire fungal spores directly from the air to an Eppendorf tube, and applying DNA barcoding with probabilistic specie…

Conservation of the endangered Mediterranean tortoise Testudo hermanni hermanni: The contribution of population genetics and historical demography

2016

International audience; Estimating the genetic variation and demographic trends of species in decline is of major concern in conservation genetics. This study contributes to understanding how historical and anthropogenic factors shape the distribution of current genetic diversity in one of the most endangered reptiles in Western Europe, the Hermann's tortoise Testudo hermanni hermanni. We used 17 microsatellite loci, chosen from a pyrosequencing library specifically developed for the subspecies to genotype eight populations distributed over about 30 sample localities covering almost the entire geographic distribution of the sub-species. The population genetic results reflect a very strong g…

Corncrake conservation genetics at a European scale: the impact of biogeographical and anthropological processes

2016

Abstract Understanding patterns of genetic structure, gene flow and diversity across a species range is required to determine the genetic status and viability of small peripheral populations. This is especially crucial in species distributed across a large range where spatial heterogeneity makes it difficult to predict the distribution of genetic diversity. Although biogeographical models provide expectations of how spatially structured genetic variation may be at the range scale, human disturbance may cause strong deviations from these theoretical predictions. In this study, we investigated genetic structure and demography at a pan-European scale in the corncrake Crex crex , a grassland bi…

Phylogeographic patterns of steppe species in Eastern Central Europe: a review and the implications for conservation

2016

The phylogeography of species associated with European steppes and extrazonal xeric grasslands is poorly understood. This paper summarizes the results of recent studies on the phylogeography and conservation genetics of animals (20 taxa of beetles, butterflies, reptiles and rodents) and flowering plants (18 taxa) of such, "steppic" habitats in Eastern Central Europe. Most species show a similar phylogeographic pattern: relatively high genetic similarity within regional groups of populations and moderate-to-high genetic distinctiveness of populations from currently isolated regions located in the studied area. This distinctiveness of populations suggests a survival here during glacial maxima…

Sareomycetes: more diverse than meets the eye

2021

AbstractSince its resurrection, the resinicolous discomycete genus Sarea has been accepted as containing two species, one with black apothecia and pycnidia, and one with orange. We investigate this hypothesis using three ribosomal (nuITS, nuLSU, mtSSU) regions from and morphological examination of 70 specimens collected primarily in Europe and North America. The results of our analyses support separation of the traditional Sarea difformis s.lat. and Sarea resinae s.lat. into two distinct genera, Sarea and Zythia. Sarea as circumscribed is shown to conservatively comprise three phylospecies, with one corresponding to Sarea difformis s.str. and two, morphologically indistinguishable, correspo…

Vertebrate defense against parasites: Interactions between avoidance, resistance, and tolerance

2017

Hosts can utilize different types of defense against the effects of parasitism, including avoidance, resistance, and tolerance. Typically, there is tremendous heterogeneity among hosts in these defense mechanisms that may be rooted in the costs associated with defense and lead to trade‐offs with other life‐history traits. Trade‐offs may also exist between the defense mechanisms, but the relationships between avoidance, resistance, and tolerance have rarely been studied. Here, we assessed these three defense traits under common garden conditions in a natural host–parasite system, the trematode eye‐fluke Diplostomum pseudospathaceum and its second intermediate fish host. We looked at host ind…

Pilot biodiversity assessment of the Hkakabo Razi passerine avifauna in northern Myanmar – implications for conservation from molecular genetics

2019

SummaryThe Hkakabo Razi region located in northern Myanmar is an Important Bird Area and part of the Eastern Himalayan Biodiversity Hotspot. Within the framework of the World Heritage Convention to enlist the site under criterion (ix) and (x), we conducted a biodiversity assessment for passerine birds using DNA barcoding and other molecular markers. Of the 441 bird species recorded, we chose 16 target species for a comparative phylogeographic study. Genetic analysis was performed for a larger number of species and helped identifying misidentified species. We found phylogeographic structure in all but one of the 16 study species. In 13 species, populations from northern Myanmar were genetica…

On Effective Biodiversity Conservation, Sustainability of Bioeconomy, and Honesty of the Finnish Forest Policy

2017

2017

The endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia is the most widespread bacteria in insects, yet the ecology of novel acquisitions in natural host populations is poorly understood. Using temporal data separated by 12 years, I tested the hypothesis that immigration of a parasitoid wasp led to transmission of its Wolbachia strain to its dipteran host, resulting in double-strain infection, and I used geographic and community surveys to explore the history of transmission in fly and parasitoid. Double infection in the fly host was present before immigration of the parasitoid. Equal prevalence of double infection in males and females, constant prevalence before and after immigration in two regions, and inc…

Deimatism: a neglected component of antipredator defence

2017

Deimatic or ‘startle’ displays cause a receiver to recoil reflexively in response to a sudden change in sensory input. Deimatism is sometimes implicitly treated as a form of aposematism (unprofitability associated with a signal). However, the fundamental difference is, in order to provide protection, deimatism does not require a predator to have any learned or innate aversion. Instead, deimatism can confer a survival advantage by exploiting existing neural mechanisms in a way that releases a reflexive response in the predator. We discuss the differences among deimatism, aposematism, and forms of mimicry, and their ecological and evolutionary implications. We highlight outstanding questions …