Elevational Pattern of Leaf Mine Diversity on Quercus variabilis Blume at Baotianman, Henan, China

The species composition and diversity pattern of leaf miners on dominant trees in China are poorly understood. Using Hill-based diversity metrics, the elevational patterns of taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity for leaf miners on Quercus variabilis Blume at Baotianman were systematically analyzed. Leaf mine types belonged to ten genera and seven families. Different leaf miners had different elevational preferences. Most taxonomic and phylogenetic Hill diversity indices had typical hump-shaped elevational patterns, with a peak at the middle elevation of approximately 875 m. No functional Hill diversity indices presented significant linear or nonlinear trends with altitude. The driving factors behind the elevational distribution patterns of leaf miners require further work.

Soil fertility and water availability effects on trait dispersion and phylogenetic relatedness of tropical terrestrial ferns

Analysis of plant functional traits and their phylogenetic relationships has shed light on the processes structuring the occurrence patterns of angiosperm taxa across environmental gradients. In montane tropical forests, angiosperms coexist with diverse communities of terrestrial ferns, with distinct evolutionary histories, leaf morphology, and reproductive systems. Here we examined the functional traits, functional dispersion, and phylogenetic diversity of ferns across a well-described gradient of moisture and soil nutrient availability in a premontane tropical rainforest in western Panama. We measured 15 functional traits from 33 terrestrial fern species occurring in 12 one-ha plots. We applied RLQ and fourth-corner analyses to assess relationships between trait and environmental variables and used beta regression to evaluate how functional dispersion responds to environmental factors. In addition, we analyzed trait distributions with respect to fern phylogeny. We found that functional composition was predicted by soil variables and dry season rainfall. Leaf phosphorus (P) increased and leaf carbon (C) to nitrogen (N) ratio decreased with increasing soil total N:P ratio. Functional dispersion decreased with increasing soil total N:P in wet sites and with increasing manganese in dry sites, suggesting that low soil fertility and dry season moisture stress both tend to reduce functional diversity. Traits exhibited phylogenetic clustering primarily at deep nodes associated with tree versus herbaceous fern clades. Our results indicate that environmental filtering of functional traits affects ferns in a similar way to angiosperms and highlight the association of the early tree fern clade with low fertility soils.

Changes of Phylogenetic and Taxonomic Diversity of Odonata (Insecta) in Response to Land Use in Amazonia

Changes in natural habitats for human use can alter the distribution of biodiversity, favoring species that are more tolerant to environmental disturbance. Usually, these species comprise clades of habitat generalists, which have biological mechanisms to colonize environments with different environmental conditions. However, such effects are still poorly understood for most biological groups, such as the Amazon odonates. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effects of land use along an environmental gradient on the phylogenetic and taxonomic diversity of Odonata in the Amazon. We tested the following hypotheses: In deforested areas (e.g., pasture for cattle, palm plantation, and logging), the Odonata community will be more taxonomically and phylogenetically impoverished than in forested areas. We assume that the modification of the natural habitat causes loss of specialist forest species and favors specialist species of open areas and/or habitat generalists. Data sampling was performed in 195 streams under different land-use types: livestock areas, palm monoculture, timber exploitation, and forest areas taken as reference sites. Our results showed that anthropogenic impacts affected the phylogenetic diversity of odonates and the increase in shrub vegetation was related to the increase in the phylogenetic diversity of communities. On the other hand, shrub vegetation is indicative of disturbed areas, where secondary vegetation predominates, with less canopy cover due to the absence or discontinuity of the native tree cover in these habitats. Nonetheless, species richness and abundance were not related to the effects of anthropogenic land use. Finally, our results suggest that the phylogenetic diversity of Amazonian odonates is related to riparian vegetation structure.

A preliminary world checklist of fern-mining insects

Compared to the leaf-miners and stem-miners on flowering plants, the miners on ferns (including both Lycopodiophyta and Polypodiophyta in the broad sense) are less known. Knowledge of miners and their host plants is essential to fully understand plant-insect interactions. Although there are many scattered records on fern miners, a worldwide checklist has not been reported. We provide a preliminary checklist of fern-mining insects and their host plants worldwide. Altogether, we found records for 128 species and 18 families of fern miners, mainly that feed on Dennstaedtiaceae, Equisetaceae, Polypodiaceae and Aspleniaceae. Fern miners belonged to four orders: Diptera (51 species; 39.8%), Coleoptera (33 species; 25.8%), Lepidoptera (28 species; 21.9%) and Hymenoptera (16 species; 12.5%). They are primarily known from the Palaearctic Region, Nearctic Region, Neotropical Region and Oriental Region.