Biodiversity Science

Feb 1, 2024 | link.springer.com | Biodiversity Science

AbstractDespite their importance for agricultural food production, many insects receive little to no positive attention. While bees have become the focus of insect conservation in agricultural landscapes, social wasps still rank among the most disliked animals and their ecological role and the ecosystem services they provide through e.g. pollination and pest control is subsequently understudied.

Jan 8, 2024 | academic.oup.com | Museum für Naturkunde |Biodiversity Science

The opposing forces of gene flow and isolation are two major processes shaping genetic diversity. Understanding how these vary across space and time is necessary to identify the environmental features that promote diversification. The detection of considerable geographic structure in taxa from the arid Nearctic has prompted research into the drivers of isolation in the region.

Aug 11, 2023 | academic.oup.com | Museum für Naturkunde |Biodiversity Science

Palaeozoic fossils of whip scorpions (Arachnida: Uropygi: Thelyphonida) are extremely rare, with only seven species of this age previously described. A new species of fossil whip scorpion, as well as the first ichnospecies assignable to this group, are described here from the Carboniferous Narragansett Basin of Massachusetts, USA. A body fossil from the Rhode Island Formation (Moscovian) is referred to as Parilisthelyphonus bryantae gen. nov., sp. nov..

Jul 16, 2023 | link.springer.com | Museum für Naturkunde |Biodiversity Science

AbstractThe first Palaeozoic spider (Arachnida: Araneae) from Germany is described as Arthrolycosa wolterbeeki sp. nov. and comes from the late Carboniferous (Moscovian) strata of Piesberg near Osnabrück in Lower Saxony. Characteristic for the genus, the new fossil reveals a posteriorly tuberculate dorsal opisthosoma, and relatively elongate and setose legs in which the first leg is longer than the second and third legs.