Systematic revision of Central American Calligrapha Chevrolat of the subgenus Erythrographa subgen. nov. (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae, Chrysomelinae)

In this work, I revise a group of thirteen species in a natural assemblage of Calligrapha Chevrolat previously shown to represent a distinct and highly divergent lineage relative to other Calligrapha. The group is given subgeneric status, under the name Erythrographa subgen. nov., based on the morphological features of its representatives, which include reddish testaceous color to dark parts of body, including elytral markings, the presence of two spots enclosed by the humeral lunule, and a bifid end of the flagellum in male genitalia, among other typical features. One of the species of the new subgenus is also new and formally described as Calligrapha synthesys sp. nov. All the species of the subgenus Erythrographa subgen. nov. are found in Mexico (with the exception of C. wickhami, only known from southern Texas), with five species with larger distributions, reaching Nicaragua (C. notatipennis Stål), Costa Rica (C. labyrinthica Stål) or Panama (C. suboculata Stål, C. synthesys sp. nov. and C. tortilis Stål). The subgenus can be considered Neotropical, endemic of Central America and particularly diverse in the Mexican Transition Zone, between the Nearctic and Neotropical realms.

Peasant economies, forestry industry and fires: socio-natural instabilities and agriculture as means of resistance

The recurrence of fires in Chilean monoculture forestry raises a number of questions about the socio-natural stability of mono-exporting economies. This article problematizes the territorial relationship between forestry industry -heavily subsidized- and peasant agriculture -historically marginalized-, revealing coexistence and stabilization difficulties and problems to reach a socio-natural assemblage respecting and including the needs of human and non-human actors.

A review on the effect of macrocyclic lactones on dung-dwelling insects: Toxicity of macrocyclic lactones to dung beetles

Avermectins and milbemycins are commonly used in agro-ecosystems for the control of parasites in domestic livestock. As integral members of agro-ecosystems with importance in maintaining pasture health through dung burial behaviour, dung beetles are an excellent nontarget bio-indicator taxon for examining potential detrimental effects of pesticide application. The current review focuses on the relative toxicity of four different anthelmintics (ivermectin, eprinomectin, doramectin and moxidectin) in dung residues using dung beetles as a bioindicator species. One of the implications of this review is that there could be an effect that extends to the entire natural assemblage of insects inhabiting and feeding on the dung of cattle treated with avermectin or milbemycin products. Over time, reduced reproductive rate would result in decreased dung beetle populations and ultimately, a decrease in the rate of dung degradation and dung burial.

Short- and long-term conditioning of a temperate marine diatom community to acidification and warming

Ocean acidification and greenhouse warming will interactively influence competitive success of key phytoplankton groups such as diatoms, but how long-term responses to global change will affect community structure is unknown. We incubated a mixed natural diatom community from coastal New Zealand waters in a short-term (two-week) incubation experiment using a factorial matrix of warming and/or elevated p CO 2 and measured effects on community structure. We then isolated the dominant diatoms in clonal cultures and conditioned them for 1 year under the same temperature and p CO 2 conditions from which they were isolated, in order to allow for extended selection or acclimation by these abiotic environmental change factors in the absence of interspecific interactions. These conditioned isolates were then recombined into ‘artificial’ communities modelled after the original natural assemblage and allowed to compete under conditions identical to those in the short-term natural community experiment. In general, the resulting structure of both the unconditioned natural community and conditioned ‘artificial’ community experiments was similar, despite differences such as the loss of two species in the latter. p CO 2 and temperature had both individual and interactive effects on community structure, but temperature was more influential, as warming significantly reduced species richness. In this case, our short-term manipulative experiment with a mixed natural assemblage spanning weeks served as a reasonable proxy to predict the effects of global change forcing on diatom community structure after the component species were conditioned in isolation over an extended timescale. Future studies will be required to assess whether or not this is also the case for other types of algal communities from other marine regimes.