Paolo Agnelli

Guide to the microscope analysis of Italian mammals hairs: Insectivora, Rodentia and Lagomorpha

Abstract A key is proposed for identifying the hairs of Italian Insectivora, Rodentia and Lagomorpha to the genera and species level using microscope analysis. The criteria used are: general morphology, scale cuticular pattern, cortex structure, medulla type, and shape in cross‐section. A new method of cross‐sectioning hair is illustrated.

Integrated operational taxonomic units (IOTUs) in echolocating bats: a bridge between molecular and traditional taxonomy.

Background Nowadays, molecular techniques are widespread tools for the identification of biological entities. However, until very few years ago, their application to taxonomy provoked intense debates between traditional and molecular taxonomists. To prevent every kind of disagreement, it is essential to standardize taxonomic definitions. Along these lines, we introduced the concept of Integrated Operational Taxonomic Unit (IOTU). IOTUs come from the concept of Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU) and paralleled the Molecular Operational Taxonomic Unit (MOTU). The latter is largely used as a standard in many molecular-based works (even if not always explicitly formalized). However, while MOTUs are assigned solely on molecular variation criteria, IOTUs are identified from patterns of molecular variation that are supported by at least one more taxonomic characteristic. Methodology/Principal Findings We tested the use of IOTUs on the widest DNA barcoding dataset of Italian echolocating bats species ever assembled (i.e. 31 species, 209 samples). We identified 31 molecular entities, 26 of which corresponded to the morphologically assigned species, two MOTUs and three IOTUs. Interestingly, we found three IOTUs in Myotis nattereri, one of which is a newly described lineage found only in central and southern Italy. In addition, we found a level of molecular variability within four vespertilionid species deserving further analyses. According to our scheme two of them (i.e. M. bechsteinii and Plecotus auritus) should be ranked as unconfirmed candidate species (UCS). Conclusions/Significance From a systematic point of view, IOTUs are more informative than the general concept of OTUs and the more recent MOTUs. According to information content, IOTUs are closer to species, although it is important to underline that IOTUs are not species. Overall, the use of a more precise panel of taxonomic entities increases the clarity in the systematic field and has the potential to fill the gaps between modern and traditional taxonomy.

What Story Does Geographic Separation of Insular Bats Tell? A Case Study on Sardinian Rhinolophids

Competition may lead to changes in a species’ environmental niche in areas of sympatry and shifts in the niche of weaker competitors to occupy areas where stronger ones are rarer. Although mainland Mediterranean (Rhinolophus euryale) and Mehely’s (R. mehelyi) horseshoe bats mitigate competition by habitat partitioning, this may not be true on resource-limited systems such as islands. We hypothesize that Sardinian R. euryale (SAR) have a distinct ecological niche suited to persist in the south of Sardinia where R. mehelyi is rarer. Assuming that SAR originated from other Italian populations (PES) – mostly allopatric with R. mehelyi – once on Sardinia the former may have undergone niche displacement driven by R. mehelyi. Alternatively, its niche could have been inherited from a Maghrebian source population. We: a) generated Maxent Species Distribution Models (SDM) for Sardinian populations; b) calibrated a model with PES occurrences and projected it to Sardinia to see whether PES niche would increase R. euryale’s sympatry with R. mehelyi; and c) tested for niche similarity between R. mehelyi and PES, PES and SAR, and R. mehelyi and SAR. Finally we predicted R. euryale’s range in Northern Africa both in the present and during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) by calibrating SDMs respectively with SAR and PES occurrences and projecting them to the Maghreb. R. mehelyi and PES showed niche similarity potentially leading to competition. According to PES’ niche, R. euryale would show a larger sympatry with R. mehelyi on Sardinia than according to SAR niche. Such niches have null similarity. The current and LGM Maghrebian ranges of R. euryale were predicted to be wide according to SAR’s niche, negligible according to PES’ niche. SAR’s niche allows R. euryale to persist where R. mehelyi is rarer and competition probably mild. Possible explanations may be competition-driven niche displacement or Maghrebian origin.

Where and at what time? Multiple roost use and emergence time in greater horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum)

One of the largest nursery colonies of Rhinolophus ferrumequinum in Italy occurs in the Natural Park of Migliarino San Rossore Massaciuccoli, Tuscany, with the species roosting in several buildings. We identified various roosts used by R. ferrumequinum within the park and investigated their microclimatic parameters (temperature, relative humidity and daily temperature excursion). We monitored roost use for one year and found it not only to be influenced by season and the microclimatic conditions of different roosts, but also by occasional stress conditions such as disturbance by predators. We also studied nightly emergence behavior, specifically we considered how this is influenced by climatic (temperature, relative humidity and evening light intensity) and demographic (presence of pups, subadults and colony size) parameters. The colony always performed a pre-emergence behavior and we found that its onset occurred earlier at higher temperatures, lower evening light intensity, in larger colonies and in the presence of pups. High temperature and low evening light intensity also resulted in a longer nightly emergence, which was also identified in larger colonies and when subadults were present. This study highlights the importance of the conservation of multiple roosts within the distribution range of R. ferrumequinum nurseries. Additionally, we demonstrated how certain climatic and demographic factors influence both pre-emergence and emergence behavior.

Collections of extant cetaceans in Italian museums and other scientific institutions. A comparative review

This paper summarizes more than four decades of cetacean research data collected by the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano and, between 1986 and 2003, by the Centro Studi Cetacei of the Societa Italiana di Scienze Naturali. It is the result of the collaboration among scientists of several Italian museums. A detailed analysis concerning the amount and taxonomic representative - ness of the extant cetacean collections in Italian naturalistic museums and analogous institutions up until and including 2007 has been carried out. Adequately preserved and anatomically most significant specimens only have been taken into consideration. On the whole 1033 specimens representing 41 species are considered herein. They are housed in 53 institutions, of which the following ones hold the most important collections: the museums of Calci (Pisa), Genova, Firenze, Milano, Roma Zoology, Siena, Comiso and Napoli. All the surveyed institutions are listed, with a short introduction about their material and an inven - tory of it. Specimens are then arranged in systematic order and some further data are provided in a table for each species. Such tables report the items of each museum with regard to quantity, preserva - tion techniques and, whenever possible, collecting data. Finally, a comparative analysis of the results is presented under multiple profiles: historical, preservation techniques, suitability of the specimens for research, place of origin, and the importance of the Italian cetacean collections for research and education.

Primatological relics of the Mission Brazza `-Pecile in Equatorial Africa at the Museo di Storia Naturale of Florence University, with taxonomic notes

The recent publication of the travel journal by Giacomo Savorgnan di Brazzà, head of a scientific mission to Western Equatorial Africa on behalf of the French government in the years 1883–1886, provides a great opportunity to increase our knowledge of a small sample of primate specimens, now preserved in the Zoological Section of the University of Florence Natural History Museum. In the present paper, some of the taxonomic aspects of the new primate species proposed on the basis of the Brazzà-Pecile’s collection deposited at the Museum National de Histoire Naturelle in Paris are also discussed. Thanks to the newly available information stored in their diaries, it is now possible to restrict more precisely type localities of newly described taxa: namely Cercopithecus brazzae, Cercocebus agilis, Colobus guereza occidentalis and Piliocolobus bouvieri.

On the distribution of micromys minutus in Italy

Bones of Micromys minutus were detected in barn owl pellets collected in the Padule di Fucecchio area. This is the first finding of this species in Tuscany. The authors discuss the past and present distribution of Micromys minutus in Italy and confirm that the two specimens found near Naples, and described as Mus meridionalis by Costa in 1844, belong to the species Micromys minutus.

Trace elements bioaccumulation in liver and fur of Myotis myotis from two caves of the eastern side of Sicily (Italy): A comparison between a control and a polluted area

Environmental pollution is a topic of great interest because it directly affects the quality of ecosystems and of all living organisms at different trophic and systematic levels. Together with the global climate change, the long-term surviving of many species of plants and animals is threaten, distributional patterns at global and regional levels are altered and it results in local assemblages of species that are quite different from those that currently constitute coevolved communities. .For this study, the species Myotis myotis was used as bioindicator and it was sampled from two caves in the south-east of Sicily, Pipistrelli chosen as control area and Palombara chosen as polluted area, to measure the concentrations of trace elements in fur and liver tissues. Results showed higher content of essential elements in fur in bats sampled from Pipistrelli. Conversely, higher concentrations of toxic metals in liver such as As, Cd, Pb and Hg were measured in bat samples in Palombara cave, where specimens have a hunting area extended within the boundaries of the petrochemical plant. Nevertheless, we cannot consider Palombara population as polluted by metal contamination since their tissue concentrations are overall lower than toxic thresholds values suggested for small mammals. Likewise, we cannot exclude other kind of pollutants as potential stressors of the examined population, contributing with the decreasing of bat colonies in Sicily.

Conclusive remarks about the synonymy ofMus meridionalisO. G. Costa, 1844 (Mammalia, Rodentia, Muridae)

Abstract A missing specimen of a small rodent, originally described by Oronzio Gabriele Costa in 1844 as the new species Mus meridionalis, has recently come to light at the Zoological Museum of the Federico II University in Naples. Cavazza (1911) carried out the last direct analysis of the specimen and confirmed its status. On the basis of some original drawings, its general description and measurements other Authors later supposed M. meridionalis to be synonymous with Micromys minutus. We re‐examined the specimen ‐ one of the two used by O. G. Costa to describe the species ‐ 90 years later and confirm its synonymy with M. minutus. The specimen has been designated as lectotype and represents the first certain report in southern Italy of M. minutus, whose present distribution, south of the Po Valley, is also discussed.