New taxa described in Zoology in the Middle East

Abstract

The region between Mersin and ?skenderun was selected for studying marine turtles in the Turkish waters of the Mediterranean sea, as the most important nesting grounds of Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the Mediterranean are situated there. In the 1995–96 fishing season, the 5 trawl boats taking part in the project reported that nets in the Eastern Mediterranean trapped 160 Green Turtles and 26 Loggerhead Turtles (Caretta caretta). In the following trawling season (1996/97), 306 Green Turtles, 116 Loggerhead Turtles (Caretta caretta) and 437 Nile Soft-shelled Turtles (Trionyx triunguis) were found to be trapped as a by-catch in the trawling nets. 87% of these turtles were captured by mid-trawling nets, the rest by bottom-trawling nets, mostly at depths of 11–30 m. 95% of all turtles were caught alive and healthy, and were usually released back into the sea immediately after capture by the fishermen. Training measures were given to local fishermen in order to raise their awareness of the threats to marine turtles.     

A new species of plume moth (Lepidoptera: Pterophoridae) from Jordan

The species Hellinsia jordanica Ustjuzhanin & Kovtunovich sp. n. is newly described from Jordan.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:EED698C9-1943-41BC-A503-13A2128A62C5     

Paddyfield Warbler,Acrocephalus agricola,at Van Gölü, eastern Turkey

Abstract

A Paddyfield Warbler was mist-netted at Van in eastern Anatolia on 8.5 1987. This is the second record for Turkey.     

Pellet contents of the Barn Owl,Tyto alba,near Samandag,Turkey

Summary

Weights and standard measurements are given of 568 individuals of 52 bird species ringed in various localities in Turkey in July and August 1973. The Melodious Warbler, Hippolais polyglotta, was recorded in Turkey for the first time.     

Occurrence of the Brown-necked Raven,Corvus ruficollis,at Cizre in Eastern Turkey

An adult male of Maynard's Longnose Sand Snake (Lytorhynchus maynardi) was collected on 24 July 2009 from the east of Sistan and Baluchistan Province in south-eastern Iran. The new locality is the westernmost record of this species in western Asia, and the first record for 42 years from Iran. Information on the geographic distribution of the genus Lytorhynchus Peters, 1863 in Iran, comparative morphology and some ecological data are presented here.     

Biogeographic characteristics of Far Eastern wasps: A case study with eumenine wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae)

A total of 107 forms of 88 eumenine wasp species occurring in the Far East were used to produce a more comprehensive picture of the geographical pattern of wasps in the Far East. All forms occurring in the Far East were biogeographically classified into 22 types in four larger categories, and a summarized table and discussion are presented. The eumenine wasp fauna of the Far East was characterized as a mixture of a fair number of endemic elements, a moderate number of transpalearctic elements, and some Oriental elements. The endemism of the Far East reached 0.71 at the species/subspecies level when the calculation was based on true Palearctic elements occurring in Far Eastern Russia, the Korean peninsula and Japan proper. The relationship between the Far Eastern fauna and the Central/Western Palearctic faunas was also analyzed and discussed. The species occurring in each treated district was counted, and provides evidence for the importance of the Korean fauna in biodiversity evaluation/estimation of Far Eastern fauna. The similarity index between the Korean Peninsula and Japan proper, the Korean Peninsula and the Russian Far East, and the Russian Far East and Japan proper was calculated to explain possible factors for faunal formation in the Far East. The distributional pattern of each form treated in this study and its relatives is tabulated in Appendix I.     

Tolerance to multiple climate stressors: a case study of Douglas‐fir drought and cold hardiness

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The oceanic concordance of phylogeography and biogeography: a case study in Notochthamalus

Dispersal and adaptation are the two primary mechanisms that set the range distributions for a population or species. As such, understanding how these mechanisms interact in marine organisms in particular – with capacity for long‐range dispersal and a poor understanding of what selective environments species are responding to – can provide useful insights for the exploration of biogeographic patterns. Previously, the barnacle Notochthamalus scabrosus has revealed two evolutionarily distinct lineages with a joint distribution that suggests an association with one of the two major biogeographic boundaries (~30°S) along the coast of Chile. However, spatial and genomic sampling of this system has been limited until now. We hypothesized that given the strong oceanographic and environmental shifts associated with the other major biogeographic boundary (~42°S) for Chilean coastal invertebrates, the southern mitochondrial lineage would dominate or go to fixation in locations further to the south. We also evaluated nuclear polymorphism data from 130 single nucleotide polymorphisms to evaluate the concordance of the signal from the nuclear genome with that of the mitochondrial sample. Through the application of standard population genetic approaches along with a Lagrangian ocean connectivity model, we describe the codistribution of these lineages through a simultaneous evaluation of coastal lineage frequencies, an approximation of larval behavior, and current‐driven dispersal. Our results show that this pattern could not persist without the two lineages having distinct environmental optima. We suggest that a more thorough integration of larval dynamics, explicit dispersal models, and near‐shore environmental analysis can explain much of the coastal biogeography of Chile.     

A revisited phylogeography of Nautilus pompilius

The cephalopod genus Nautilus is considered a “living fossil” with a contested number of extant and extinct species, and a benthic lifestyle that limits movement of animals between isolated seamounts and landmasses in the Indo‐Pacific. Nautiluses are fished for their shells, most heavily in the Philippines, and these fisheries have little monitoring or regulation. Here, we evaluate the hypothesis that multiple species of Nautilus (e.g., N. belauensis, N. repertus and N. stenomphalus) are in fact one species with a diverse phenotypic and geologic range. Using mitochondrial markers, we show that nautiluses from the Philippines, eastern Australia (Great Barrier Reef), Vanuatu, American Samoa, and Fiji fall into distinct geographical clades. For phylogenetic analysis of species complexes across the range of nautilus, we included sequences of Nautilus pompilius and other Nautilus species from GenBank from localities sampled in this study and others. We found that specimens from Western Australia cluster with samples from the Philippines, suggesting that interbreeding may be occurring between those locations, or that there is limited genetic drift due to large effective population sizes. Intriguingly, our data also show that nautilus identified in other studies as N. belauensis, N. stenomphalus, or N. repertus are likely N. pompilius displaying a diversity of morphological characters, suggesting that there is significant phenotypic plasticity within N. pompilius.