E. D. Edwards

Using meteorological and lunar information to explain catch variability of Orthoptera and Lepidoptera from 250 W Farrow light traps

Abstract.  1. Farrow light traps have been used in Australia since the 1970s to monitor locusts only, but catch variability has not been explained. Four light traps were operated at North Bourke, northern New South Wales, to study catch variability.

Host‐plants of leaf‐miners in Australian subtropical rainforest

Leaf‐miners are endophytic insect herbivores that are considered to be relatively host‐specific compared with other types of insect herbivores, often depending on one or a few congeneric hosts. Because of their degree of host‐specificity, they may be particularly vulnerable to environmental change. Despite this, little is known about the host‐plants and life histories of the Australian leaf‐mining fauna. Here we present new information on the host‐plant use of leaf‐miners occurring in Australian subtropical rainforest. We repeatedly hand‐collected leaf‐miners at 14 sampling sites in the ‘Tweed Caldera’ subtropical rainforest region of south‐eastern Queensland and north‐eastern New South Wales, Australia. Leaf‐miners and their host‐plants were identified to species (or morphospecies in the case of some leaf‐miners). Within the region, a total of 106 plant species was recorded as leaf‐miner hosts, on which a total of 12 679 individual leaf‐miners was counted, belonging to 50 different species. We measured the local host‐plant range of each leaf‐miner species for which we had reliable incidence records across sampling sites (24 species). Local host‐specificity was relatively high with 66.7 % of species recorded from a single or two congeneric host‐plants. 16.7 % of species were restricted to a single plant family and 16.7 % were recorded on a few to several plants of the same plant order or across a range of unrelated host‐plants.

Integrating dots and spots with COI sequence data reinstates Thoracolopha Turner, 1939 (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), for 13 Australian species formerly in Proteuxoa Hampson, 1903

Thoracolopha was described by Turner in 1939 for Thoracolopha alychnodes, Thoracolopha plaesiospila and Thoracolopha pissonephra, with the last designated as the type species. In 1996, Edwards referred all three taxa to Proteuxoa Hampson, 1903, thus synonymising Thoracolopha with Proteuxoa. However, the genitalia of Proteuxoa pissonephra are not like those of the Proteuxoa type species Proteuxoa amaurodes (Lower 1902), and the results of a phylogenetic analysis, using maximum likelihood, of sequence data from mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) also indicate that Proteuxoa (sensu Edwards) is more than one genus. As a consequence, the genitalia of 42 of the species referred to Proteuxoa by Edwards were dissected and compared for the first time with those of P. pissonephra and P. amaurodes. Based on bootstrap branch support provided by COI sequence analysis (84%), as well as morphological evidence, Thoracolopha is here removed from synonymy and re‐established as a valid genus with 13 described species. The genitalia of typical Thoracolopha and typical Proteuxoa are illustrated, and Thoracolopha is redescribed from both sexes, so that the misidentified Thoracolopha species in collections can be reliably distinguished from those of Proteuxoa using adult morphology alone.