Systematics of South Pacific sap beetles

The species of Carpophilus of particular interest: dorsal habitus above, male parameres below.

Two and a half years ago, I completed my MSc looking at the sap beetles in the genus Carpophilus. In particular, I looked at the C. oculatus species complex from the South Pacific. The species was first described in 1864, before it settled into obscurity. It was only mentioned a few times in the literature until 1993, when Ron Dobson published the results of a study where he looked at a large series of the species. He described three subspecies, two of which were widespread and sympatric, while the third was confined to Vanuatu. Another species, C. maculatus is rather similar in appearance, to the extent that questions were being raised as to the validity of the taxon complex.

My task was to look at this group using molecular methods. In particular, I used three genes to investigate the relationships between these four taxa, and any other species of Carpophilus I could get my grubby hands on. I found that C. maculatus is indeed a distinct species from C. oculatus, and also found sufficient evidence to warrant raising the subspecies from Vanuatu to a full species. The other two subspecies, while being somewhat distinct, did not form entirely separate groups, which suggests that something interesting has happened in the genetic history of these taxa. It was a successful and enjoyable project, and I am proud to say that I completed my MSc with first class honours.

So far, so good. However, the currency of modern academia is peer-reviewed publications. The preparation of manuscripts is an arduous process, and over the past two years the one describing the aforementioned research has been languishing on various people's desks (mine, mainly). In the past month though, it been brought into the light of day and has been published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. Check it out! If you don't have access to it, feel free to email the author.

References:
Brown SDJ, Armstrong KF, Cruickshank RH. 2012. Molecular phylogenetics of a South Pacific sap beetle species complex (Carpophilus spp., Coleoptera: Nitidulidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 64(3), 428–440

Vanuatu Caddisflies

A recently published paper by Kjell Johanson revises the caddisfly fauna of Vanuatu, descibing 12 new species and providing a key to the species currently known from the archipelago. It is an important contribution to the knowledge of the caddisfly fauna of the region, as most of the previous work done on the fauna of the region is several decades old.

A couple of things stood out to me in this paper. The first is that Orthotricha has not been recorded from any other oceanic Pacific islands. These are small (2-3 mm wing length) creatures, and it is likely that they just haven't been collected elsewhere in the Pacific. The second was their discovery that a female of Triplectides australis had a large number of larvae inside her abdomen. While I was hitherto unaware that ovoviviparity occurred in caddisflies, it turns out that this has been known since 1890, the first instance of it being confirmed by Prof. Wood-Mason in the following manner:

I threw the insect alive into a liqueur-glass of whiskey that happened to be ready at hand.

Adult caddisflies tend to be overlooked by the general public, usually being confused as small, fairly dull-looking moths. Their larvae are aquatic where they form an important part of the macro-invertebrate fauna of streams, and can be useful as indicators of water quality and stream health. Unfortunately, very little biological information is recorded in the paper, and larvae are not considered. In part this is due to Malaise and light traps providing the bulk of the material that was considered in the revision. Discovering and describing larvae and their habitats is a natural application of the taxonomic effort of this paper.

References

Johanson KA, Wells A, Malm T, Espeland M. 2011. The Trichoptera of Vanuatu. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 58(2): 279-320.

Wood-Mason J. 1890. On a viviparous caddis fly. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 6th series, 6: 139-141.

Vanuatu Birds Website

While reading the paper on white-eye blood parasites, I noticed a link to the VanBirds website. It is an incredible website, and an excellent resource for both casual bird watchers and serious ornithologists. It has photos of many of the bird species found in the archipelago. In addition, it has recordings of the calls of many of the species also. Most importantly though, the website collates records of birds throughout the archipelago and displays them on a map as shown by this map of the distribution of the Vanuatu endemic flycatcher, the buff-bellied monarch (Neolalage banksiana, pictured above). It appears to be well-maintained, being last updated on the 25th of May this year.

This website is very impressive and is a highly valuable resource for the ornithology of Vanuatu. It is all the more remarkable, as it appears to be very much a grass-roots type effort and claims to have had no external funding thus far. It would be awesome to see more sites like this spring up for the other Melanesian island groups.

Houseflies of New Caledonia and Vanuatu

Over the past couple of months, Marcia Couri and colleagues have published two monographs on the Muscidae of New Caledonia and Vanuatu. These two papers describe six new species with nine other species recorded from the region for the first time. The world-wide house fly Musca domestica (pictured here) is newly recorded from a number of islands throughout Vanuatu.

These papers are important additions to our knowledge of Melanesian flies. They give keys and diagnoses for the genera and species found in each archipelago, and give comments on the wider distribution of the flies found. Unfortunately, there are few illustrations, limited to line drawings of taxonomically important structures of the newly described species. While this may limit their utility to users who don't already have some familiarity with the group, these paper effectively summarize the housefly fauna of the region and provide a good basis for the further study of this important group.


References:
Couri MS, Pont AC, Daugeron C. 2010. The Muscidae (Diptera) of Vanuatu. Zootaxa 2556: 1–39
Couri MS, Pont AC, Daugeron C. 2010. The Muscidae (Diptera) of New Caledonia. Zootaxa 2503: 1–61

Blood parasites in Melanesian White-eyes

The white-eyes are a group of small birds in the genus Zosterops with an interest out of all proportion to their size. As a genus, they range from Africa, through Asia and Australia to many islands in the Pacific where they are fairly common. In the islands they have diversified to the extent that most archipelagos have at least one endemic species present. This is most impressive in the New Georgia group of the Solomon Islands, where six species are present over six different islands---many of which are separated only by a few kilometres of ocean. Additionally, one particular species, the silver-eye (Zosterops lateralis) has a wide range across Australia and into the central Pacific As such, there are many different questions regarding their dispersal, rate of speciation and the relationships between the different species.

In a paper by Farah Ishtiaq and coauthors, the birds themselves are not so much of interest. Rather, it's the prevalence of parasites in the blood of the birds found in Vanuatu and New Caledonia. More specifically, they look at the protozoans Plasmodium (more commonly known as avian malaria) and Haemoproteus that are spread from bird to bird by blood-sucking flies and mosquitoes. They took blood samples from a number of specimens, comprehensively sampling five different species of white-eye from Vanuatu (13 islands represented), mainland New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands. Within these, they found seven different lineages of Haemoproteus and 14 lineages of Plasmodium. Most lineages were fairly scarce, with one lineage of each parasite genus being the most common and widespread.

When they looked at the number of parasite lineages on each island, they found that the larger islands had more lineages of Plasmodium than smaller islands. This trend was much less evident in Haemoproteus, being not statistically significant. The pattern of increasing numbers of lineages or species with increasing island area is a very well-known relationship that forms the basis of the Theory of Island Biogeography, first postulated by Robert MacArthur and EO Wilson in the 1960s. It is interesting that these parasites show the pattern also, despite the additional variables of requiring a host and a vector insect to be present.

Why is this of interest? Parasites have a huge effect on their hosts which is often invisible. They are also a part of the natural heritage of this world and so are worthy of study in their own right. These findings share a small glimpse into a world that is usually hidden, and increases our awareness of the biota of the Melanesian region. As with a lot of scientific research, progress is incremental with many small, initially insignificant findings building into a body of knowledge that can be extremely important for health, conservation, or technological impact.

References:
Ishtiaq F, Clegg SM, Phillimore AB, Black RA, Owens PF, Sheldon BC. 2010. Biogeographical patterns of blood parasite lineage diversity in avian hosts from southern Melanesian islands. Journal of Biogeography 37: 120-132.

Agriculture in the Pacific

Agriculture in developing countries is an area where a lot of international assistance and aid money goes. A lot of hard work, interesting information and useful resources are the fruits of these activities. Unfortunately though, this information can get easily lost in the morass of information that is the internet. The following is my humble attempt to promote a few of the sites I know that are relevant to Agriculture in the South Pacific, in addition to the ACIAR and SPC Forestry pamphlets I've talked about before.

Terracircle is an NGO that works primarily in Melanesia promoting sustainable agriculture through technical training, publications, consultancy and the provision of small grants for communities.

Working in close association with Terracircle is the Kastom Gaden Association (another website is under construction here) and the Planting Material Network, both based in the Solomon Islands. Both these organisations operate much more on the grass-roots level, connecting farmers within the Solomons to each other and encouraging communication at that level.

The Melanesian Farmer First Network is broader in scope than the two above, supporting farmers throughout PNG, the Solomons and Vanuatu. I liked the Innovations page on their site, though unfortunately it is only very infrequently updated.

OISAT (or the "Online Information Service for Non-Chemical Pest Management in the Tropics" in full) aims to detail control methods for tropical crops and pests. It seems to have more of a focus on Asia, but the information that is here will be of worth in most places with these crops and pests. It is currently fairly incomplete, with few of the insects in the Pest Management strategy having any information beyond a picture. However, there was a note saying the page had been updated in some form a day ago, so there is hope that this will change in the future.

Featured insect: Eucurtiopsis kitchingi (Coleoptera: Histeridae)

It may be difficult to tell, but this is actually a beetle. More specifically, it goes by the name of Eucurtiopsis kitchingi and is in the subfamily Chlamydopsinae of the Histeridae. It was very recently described (in September) by Alexey Tishechkin from material collected during the Santo 2006 expedition. Doesn't it look cool!

The Chlamydopsinae are an interesting group. Shunning the scavenging and predatory stereotype that the histerids have, the chlamydopsines cohabit with ants and termites, where they might feed on eggs and larvae. One species has also been observed riding on top of their host ants as a means of transport. Until recently, they were considered to be a relatively species-poor group, with only 47 species in 1997. However, the past 10 years has revealed a startling amount of diversity, particularly on the Pacific Islands of New Caledonia and Vanuatu, and undoubtedly with more to be discovered in other regions also.

Unfortunately, nothing is known about the biology of E. kitchingi. It was collected in flight intercept traps, and was not detected in any of the ant nests the author investigated. At 1.5 mm in length, it's not going to make its presence felt, and is unlikely to be found serendipitously. This being said, ant research is an active area currently, and so it might pay for ant workers to keep these beetles in mind as they do their field work.

References:
Caterino MS, Degallier N. 2007.A review of the biology and systematics of Chlamydopsinae (Coleoptera: Histeridae). Invertebrate Systematics 21: 1-28.

Tishechkin AK. 2009. Discovery of Chlamydopsinae (Insecta, Coleoptera, Histeridae) in Vanuatu with the description of eight new species from Espiritu Santo Island. Zoosystema 30(3) : 661-690.