Jürgen Deckert

Na+/K+-ATPase resistance and cardenolide sequestration: basal adaptations to host plant toxins in the milkweed bugs (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae: Lygaeinae)

Despite sequestration of toxins being a common coevolutionary response to plant defence in phytophagous insects, the macroevolution of the traits involved is largely unaddressed. Using a phylogenetic approach comprising species from four continents, we analysed the ability to sequester toxic cardenolides in the hemipteran subfamily Lygaeinae, which is widely associated with cardenolide-producing Apocynaceae. In addition, we analysed cardenolide resistance of their Na+/K+-ATPases, the molecular target of cardenolides. Our data indicate that cardenolide sequestration and cardenolide-resistant Na+/K+-ATPase are basal adaptations in the Lygaeinae. In two species that shifted to non-apocynaceous hosts, the ability to sequester was secondarily reduced, yet Na+/K+-ATPase resistance was maintained. We suggest that both traits evolved together and represent major coevolutionary adaptations responsible for the evolutionary success of lygaeine bugs. Moreover, specialization on cardenolides was not an evolutionary dead end, but enabled this insect lineage to host shift to cardenolide-producing plants from distantly related families.

Review of the oriental genus Protolepta Melichar, with description of the second species from Sulawesi, Indonesia (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Dictyopharidae: Orthopagini)

Abstract The Oriental genus Protolepta Melichar is revised to include two species: P. turbata (the type species) and P. linnavuorii sp. nov., both from Sulawesi, Indonesia. Redescription is provided for P. turbata together with habitus photographs and detailed illustrations of the male genitalia for the first time. A key to the species of the genus and a distribution map are given.

True bugs (Hemiptera-Heteroptera) of Botswana—Bibliographical inventory and new records

The knowledge of insect biodiversity of Botswana is far from perfect. By 2015, there were only inventories publicly available for butterflies, dragonflies and grasshoppers. Here we report 331 species and subspecies of true bugs (Heteroptera), of which 242 records were extracted from scattered published literature and online sources, and 89 (27%) are new records for Botswana. These data significantly increase the number of insect species known from Botswana by roughly 30%.