Derek S. Sikes

Climate change impacts on bumblebees converge across continents

Bucking the trend Responses to climate change have been observed across many species. There is a general trend for species to shift their ranges poleward or up in elevation. Not all species, however, can make such shifts, and these species might experience more rapid declines. Kerr et al. looked at data on bumblebees across North America and Europe over the past 110 years. Bumblebees have not shifted northward and are experiencing shrinking distributions in the southern ends of their range. Such failures to shift may be because of their origins in a cooler climate, and suggest an elevated susceptibility to rapid climate change. Science, this issue p. 177 Cool-adapted bumblebees are failing to shift their ranges in response to climate warming. For many species, geographical ranges are expanding toward the poles in response to climate change, while remaining stable along range edges nearest the equator. Using long-term observations across Europe and North America over 110 years, we tested for climate change–related range shifts in bumblebee species across the full extents of their latitudinal and thermal limits and movements along elevation gradients. We found cross-continentally consistent trends in failures to track warming through time at species’ northern range limits, range losses from southern range limits, and shifts to higher elevations among southern species. These effects are independent of changing land uses or pesticide applications and underscore the need to test for climate impacts at both leading and trailing latitudinal and thermal limits for species.

Molecular phylogeny of the burying beetles (Coleoptera: Silphidae: Nicrophorinae).

Burying beetles (Silphidae: Nicrophorus) are well-known for their monopolization of small vertebrate carcasses in subterranean crypts and complex biparental care behaviors. They have been the focus of intense behavioral, ecological, and conservation research since the 1980s yet no thorough phylogenetic estimate for the group exists. Herein, we infer relationships, test past hypotheses of relationships, and test biogeographic scenarios among 55 of the subfamily Nicrophorinaes currently valid and extant 72 species. Two mitochondrial genes, COI and COII, and two nuclear genes, the D2 region of 28S, and the protein coding gene CAD, provided 3,971 nucleotides for 58 nicrophorine and 5 outgroup specimens. Ten partitions, with each modeled by GTR+I+G, were used for a 100 M generation MrBayes analysis and maximum likelihood bootstrapping with Garli. The inferred Bayesian phylogeny was mostly well-resolved with only three weak branches of biogeographic relevance. The common ancestor of the subfamily and of the genus Nicrophorus was reconstructed as Old World with four separate transitions to the New World and four reverse colonizations of the Old World from the New. Divergence dating from analysis with BEAST indicate the genus Nicrophorus originated in the Cretaceous, 127-99 Ma. Most prior, pre-cladistic hypotheses of relationships were strongly rejected while most modern hypotheses were largely congruent with monophyletic groups in our estimated phylogeny. Our results reject a recent hypothesis that Nicrophorus morio Gebler, 1817 (NEW STATUS as valid species) is a subspecies of N. germanicus (L., 1758). Two subgenera of Nicrophorus are recognized: NecroxenusSemenov-Tian-Shanskij, 1933, and NicrophorusFabricius, 1775.

Detection of Francisella tularensis in Alaskan Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) and Assessment of a Laboratory Model for Transmission

ABSTRACT Tularemia is a zoonotic disease caused by the Category A bioterrorism agent Francisella tularensis. In Scandinavia, tularemia transmission by mosquitoes has been widely cited in the literature, We tested >2,500 mosquitoes captured in Alaska and found Francisella DNA in 30% of pooled samples. To examine the potential for transmission of Francisella by mosquitoes, we developed a mosquito model of Francisella infection, Larvae of Anopheles gambiae Giles and Aedes aegypti (L.) readily ingest F. tularensis but do not efficiently transfer infective doses of the bacterium to the pupal or adult stage, After a bloodmeal containing Francisella, adult female An. gambiae and Ae. aegypti retained detectable levels of Francisella DNA for 3 d, but when they took a second bloodmeal, the mammalian host was not infected. This study suggests that although Francisella DNA can be detected in a significant portion of wild-caught mosquitoes, transmission of Francisella is either very inefficient or is species dependent for the Francisella strain or the arthropod vector.

Terrestrial arthropods of pre- and post-eruption Kasatochi Island, Alaska, 2008-2009: a shift from a plant-based to a necromass-based food web.

Abstract On 11 June 2008 the first author spent 10.66 h on Kasatochi Island and collected 396 terrestrial arthropod specimens estimated to represent a minimum of 58 species. Among these are included the first Alaskan records of the fly genus Lestremia and the ghost moth Sthenopis quadriguttatus (Grote). Also found were a new species of salpingid beetle in the genus Aegialites and sawfly in the genus Pseudodineura. On 10 and 12 August 2009, one year after an eruption that buried the island in ash, the first author spent 15 h sampling terrestrial arthropods. Specimens were also collected on 12–14 June 2009 by other team members. An estimated 17 post-eruption species were documented by the collection of 210 specimens. Evidence of breeding was seen in 4–9 species. Pitfall traps run from 14 June to 10 August 2009 flooded, capturing no arthropods. Fallout collectors representing 1 m2, run during the same period, had four flies and no seeds. The majority of species recovered post-eruption were probably survivors or their offspring, some of which had commenced breeding on rotting kelp and bird carcasses. Of significance as the first post-eruption evidence of multi-trophic level interaction, a fly predator on kelp flies, Scathophaga, and an ichneumonid endoparasite of flies, Phygadeuon, were also present. No phytophagous or fungivorous species were found. Supporting the heterotrophs-first hypothesis of Hodkinson et al. (2002), the current terrestrial ecosystem of Kasatochi is necromass-based rather than plant-based.

Biological legacies: Direct early ecosystem recovery and food web reorganization after a volcanic eruption in Alaska

Abstract: Attempts to understand how communities assemble following a disturbance are challenged by the difficulty of determining the relative importance of stochastic and deterministic processes. Biological legacies, which result from organisms that survive a disturbance, can favour deterministic processes in community assembly and improve predictions of successional trajectories. Recently disturbed ecosystems are often so rapidly colonized by propagules that the role of biological legacies is obscured. We studied biological legacies on a remote volcanic island in Alaska following a devastating eruption where the role of colonization from adjacent communities was minimized. The role of biological legacies in the near shore environment was not clear, because although some kelp survived, they were presumably overwhelmed by the many vagile propagules in a marine environment. The legacy concept was most applicable to terrestrial invertebrates and plants that survived in remnants of buried soil that were exposed by post-eruption erosion. If the legacy concept is extended to include ex situ survival by transient organisms, then it was also applicable to the islands thousands of seabirds, because the seabirds survived the eruption by leaving the island and have begun to return and rebuild their nests as local conditions improve. Our multi-trophic examination of biological legacies in a successional context suggests that the relative importance of biological legacies varies with the degree of destruction, the availability of colonizing propagules, the spatial and temporal scales under consideration, and species interactions. Understanding the role of biological legacies in community assembly following disturbances can help elucidate the relative importance of colonists versus survivors, the role of priority effects among the colonists, convergence versus divergence of successional trajectories, the influence of spatial heterogeneity, and the role of island biogeographical concepts.

On natural history collections, digitized and not: a response to Ferro and Flick

Abstract Ferro and Flick (2015) describe their efforts to estimate the distribution for a species of rove beetle via the study of specimens from entomological collections, and compare these results to digitally accessible open data. Their study provides an informed and accurate case study that contrasts targeted data capture with generalized public repositories of digital specimen data. However, we feel the conclusions on how global biodiversity data aggregation and publication work require clarification and correction of common misconceptions that we believe will interest those concerned with the future of natural history collections and taxonomy.

LepNet: The Lepidoptera of North America Network

The Lepidoptera of North America Network, or LepNet, is a digitization effort recently launched to mobilize biodiversity data from 3 million specimens of butterflies and moths in United States natural history collections (http://www.lep-net.org/). LepNet was initially conceived as a North American effort but the project seeks collaborations with museums and other organizations worldwide. The overall goal is to transform Lepidoptera specimen data into readily available digital formats to foster global research in taxonomy, ecology and evolutionary biology.

The value of museums in the production, sharing, and use of entomological data to document hyperdiversity of the changing North

If the current rate of climate change continues, the composition, distribution, and relative population sizes of species in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere are likely to change considerably. Understanding the magnitude of this change requires a well- documented baseline against which to compare. Although specimen-less observations can help augment such a baseline for the minority of organisms that can be confidently identified in the field or from photographs, the vast majority of species are small-bodied invertebrates, primarily arthropods, that can only be identified from preserved specimens and (or) their tissues. Museum staff archive specimens and make them and their data available for research. This paper describes a number of challenges to the goal of thorough documentation of high-latitude arthropod biodiversity and their potential solutions. Examples are provided from ongoing and recently completed research that demonstrates the value of museum specimens and the sharing of their da...

Relocation risky for bumblebee colonies—Response.

Lozier et al. accept our findings but take issue with a concluding sentence alluding to relocation to mitigate potential climate change impacts on bumblebee species. We welcome thoughtful discussion of this admittedly difficult area ([ 1 ][1]). However, Lozier et al. present an idiosyncratic view of

Synonymy of four Pardosa species (Araneae: Lycosidae) undiagnosable without geography

Abstract We examined a group of seven morphologically similar species of the genus Pardosa to determine the reliability of morphological identification characters independently of additional specimen data, such as habitat and geography. Of the seven, four shared diagnostic character states with other species. These four species have areas of both sympatric and allopatric distribution. Specimens collected from allopatric areas, thus expected to contain only one species, were identified using only the morphology of the specimens, keeping the locality data hidden, and the reliability of the identifications was assessed. Identifications of the allopatric specimens resulted in a 32% success rate, indicating that the sole use of morphological characters did not work well for identification in this group. Reliance on geographical data to direct an identification would likely result in identification errors in areas of sympatry. As a result we conclude Pardosa tristis (Thorell 1877), P. prosaica Chamberlin and Ivie 1947 and P. dromaea (Thorell 1877), are new synonyms of Pardosa groenlandica (Thorell 1872).