Pavel Pech

Phylogeny and classification of the Phengaris–Maculinea clade (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae): total evidence and phylogenetic species concepts

Abstract Total evidence analysis, based on a combination of morphological and ecological characters with two mitochondrial sequences (cytochrome c oxidase subunits I and II) and one nuclear (elongation factor‐1α) sequence, provides a new phylogeny of the uniquely obligate ant parasitic Phengaris–Maculinea butterflies. The clade, including all species of Maculinea and Phengaris, is very stable and well supported. However, various analyses suggest that either Phengaris or Maculinea is not monophyletic with regard to the other, which necessitates generic reclassification of the clade. Application of the diagnostic and monophyletic ‘phylogenetic’ species concepts leads to species‐level reclassification, including ten species (P. alcon comb.n. including ‘P. rebeli’, P. daitozana, P. albida, P. atroguttata, P. kurentzovi comb.n., P. nausithous comb.n., P. teleius comb.n., P. arion comb.n., P. arionides comb.n., P. takamukui comb.n.) and one unresolved metaspecies (‘P. cyanecula’ comb.n.) in four monophyletic species groups. The existence of further or additional cryptic species is possible within P. nausithous and P. teleius. Maculinea Van Eecke, 1915 syn.n. is considered a junior synonym of Phengaris Doherty, 1891.

Phylogeny of Maculinea blues (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) based on morphological and ecological characters: evolution of parasitic myrmecophily

A phylogeny of blue butterflies of the genus Maculinea and related genera (Lycaenidae) is proposed, based on 91 morphological and ecological characters. The resulting tree shows that: (1) Phengaris is a derived group nested within Maculinea; (2) the Maculinea‐Phengaris clade is probably nested within Glaucopsyche; (3) there are three well supported groups within the Maculinea‐Phengaris clade: (alcon group ((teleius group) (arion‐Phengaris group))). Some species (M. alcon, M. arionides) appear to be non‐monophyletic and require reclassification. The two alternative strategies of parasitic myrmecophily in the Maculinea‐Phengaris clade, viz., “predatory” and “cuckoo”, seem to be derived characters of the alcon group, and of the teleius and arion‐Phengaris groups, respectively. The common ancestor of Maculinea used dorsal nectary organ secretions for ant attraction, while this trait was reduced in the ancestor of the alcon group and in M. nausithous (of the teleius group). The three recent Maculinea lineages utilize taxonomically diverse host plants, the asterid families Gentianaceae (alcon and arion‐Phengaris groups), Lamiaceae (arion‐Phengaris group), Campanulaceae (arion‐Phengaris group), and the rosid family Rosaceae (teleius group).

Benomyl treatment decreases fecundity of ant queens

Methyl benzimidazole carbamate fungicides, including benomyl, are widely used in agriculture, and to eliminate entomopathogenic infections. We treated queens of Myrmica rubra (Hymenoptera:Formicidae) infected or not by Rickia wasmannii (Laboulbeniales:Laboulbeniaceae) with benomyl, 1mg/ml p.o. for six weeks. Benomyl did not treat the infection, and the treatment alone caused strong decrease in the fecundity of control healthy queens from 18.0±8.4 to 3.7±5.2eggs per healthy queen. This is the first evidence on severe adverse effects of methyl benzimidazole carbamate fungicide on the fecundity of insects, which might be responsible for altered species composition of ant assemblages in the cultural landscape.

Differential response of communities of plants, snails, ants and spiders to long-term mowing in a small-scale experiment

We examined the response of communities of four groups of organisms (plants, snails, ants and spiders) in a small scale mosaic of 8-years mown and unmown plots in a wet meadow in Central Europe. The experimental setup consisted of 7 unmown and 8 regularly mown 4 m2 plots in checkerboard arrangement. Eight years after the start of the experiment, the plant community structure diverged in response to mowing/nonmowing, both in species composition and structure. Both bryophyte and vascular plant species numbers were significantly higher in the mown plots. In unmown plots, bryophytes nearly disappeared and plots were dominated by the tall tussock grass Molinia caerulea. Both diversity and abundance of snails were higher in unmown plots than in mown ones. Ant nests were more abundant in mown plots and species composition differed between mown and unmown plots. We captured significantly more individuals of spiders in mown plots but we did not find any difference in species composition. We conclude that the 8-years duration of different management of 4 m2 plots was sufficient to establish different communities in low movable organisms, whereas these plots are probably too small to host different assemblages of organisms with good active dispersal abilities.

On the need of radical ideals in automatic proving: a theorem about regular polygons

The paper deals with a problem of finding natural geometry problem, that is, not specifically built up for the only purpose of having some concrete property, where the hypothesis is not described by a radical ideal. This problem was posed by Chou long ago. Regular polygons in the Euclidean space Ed and their existence in spaces of various dimensions are studied by the technique of Grobner bases. When proving that regular pentagons and heptagons span spaces of even dimension one encounters the case that the ideal describing the hypotheses is not radical. Thus, in order to prove that H ⇒ T one needs to show that T belongs to the radical of the ideal describing H.

Diversity of Ant Community in Ore Sedimentation Basin under Different Regimes of Reclamation

ABSTRACT Post-industrial sites form a unique phenomenon in the landscape. They enable us to study the human-altered succession of communities. Regarding this, we studied an ant community in three types of habitats – reclamation and spontaneous succession in an ore basin together with unaltered surroundings in the Czech Republic. More than 30 years after being abandoned, the site with spontaneous succession was more species rich than the reclaimed one. Moreover, spontaneous succession created a habitat that was more similar regarding ant diversity to the unaltered surrounding environment than that after traditional reclamation. Ants dependent on tree vegetation were rather rare in both the reclaimed and spontaneous succession parts of the ore basin compared to the surrounding landscape. The relative abundance of socially parasitic ants increases in a gradient from the reclaimed basin, through the basin with spontaneous succession to the unaltered surroundings. Our study highlighted the fact that the formation of ant communities at post-industrial sites is clearly more complicated than for other arthropods, including related aculeate hymenopterans. The potential of both reclaimed and spontaneous succession basins for harbouring endangered species appeared to be lower for ants than for other taxa indicated by recent studies.

On One Locus in the Plane

In this work we deal with the problem: determine the locus of the point P such that the feet of the perpendiculars from P to (extended) sides of a given planar quadrilateral ABCD are concyclic. In general the locus is a cubic curve. We get a correspondence between some types of quadrilaterals and some classes of cubic curves. In the paper we answer several questions: For which quadrilaterals is the searched locus a cubic curve and for which a conic? What are properties of the cubic? For which quadrilaterals is the cubic decomposable? Which quadrilaterals correspond to singular cubic curves? What happens if a quadrilateral is tangential?

Structure and development of the metapleural gland in Technomyrmex vitiensis

We studied the internal and external appearance of the metapleural gland in the five castes of Technomyrmex vitiensis. All castes do possess the gland, but with a clear gradient from queens (most developed gland), via intercastes, workers and wingless males to winged males (least developed). Also the size and the shape of the atrium differ among castes along the same gradient. The presence of a more developed gland in wingless males than in winged males may be linked with the much longer longevity of the former. The number of secretory cells in T. vitiensis is the lowest among ants known so far. The functional meaning of this is not yet known and calls for a functional study of the gland’s secretion.

Extension of Simson–Wallace Theorem on Skew Quadrilaterals and Further Properties

The paper deals with the extension of the well-known Simson–Wallace theorem on skew quadrilaterals in \(E^3.\) We investigate locus of a point P whose orthogonal projections K, L, M, N onto the sides of a skew quadrilateral form a tetrahedron of a constant volume s. It is shown that the locus is a cubic surface G.