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Noori, S., A. Hofmann, D. Rödder, M. Husemann, and H. Rajaei. 2024. A window to the future: effects of climate change on the distribution patterns of Iranian Zygaenidae and their host plants. Biodiversity and Conservation. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-023-02760-2

Climate change has been suggested as an important human-induced driver for the ongoing sixth mass extinction. As a common response to climate change, and particularly global warming, species move toward higher latitudes or shift uphill. Furthermore, rapid climate change impacts the biotic interactions of species, particularly in the case of Zygaenid moths which exhibit high specialization in both habitat and host plant preferences. Iranian Zygaenidae are relatively well-known and represent a unique fauna with a high endemism rate (46%) in the whole Palearctic; as such they are a good model group to study the impact of climate change on future distributions. In this study, we used species distribution models (SDMs) and ensembles of small models (ESMs) to investigate the impact of climate change on the future distribution of endemic and non-endemic species of zygaenids, as well as their larval host plants. Three different climate scenarios were applied to forecast the probable responses of the species to different climate change intensities. Our results suggest that the central and southern parts of the country will be impacted profoundly by climate change compared to the northern regions. Beyond this, most endemic species will experience an altitudinal shift from their current range, while non-endemic species may move towards higher latitudes. Considering that the regions with higher diversity of zygaenids are limited to mountainous areas, mainly within the Irano-Anatolian biodiversity hotspot, the identification of their local high diversity regions for conservation practices has a high priority.

Campbell, C., G. Granath, and H. Rydin. 2021. Climatic drivers of Sphagnum species distributions. Frontiers of Biogeography 13. https://doi.org/10.21425/f5fbg51146

Peatmosses(genus Sphagnum) dominate most Northern mires and show distinct distributional limits in Europe despite having efficient dispersal and few dispersal barriers. This pattern indicates that Sphagnum species distributions are strongly linked to climate. Sphagnumdominated mires have been the la…

Oh, D., K. P. Kowalski, Q. N. Quach, C. Wijesinghege, P. Tanford, M. Dassanayake, and K. Clay. 2021. Novel genome characteristics contribute to the invasiveness of Phragmites australis (common reed). Molecular Ecology 31: 1142–1159. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16293

The rapid invasion of the non-native Phragmites australis (Poaceae, subfamily Arundinoideae) is a major threat to native wetland ecosystems in North America and elsewhere. We describe the first reference genome for P. australis and compare invasive (ssp. australis) and native (ssp. americanus) genot…

Xue, T., S. R. Gadagkar, T. P. Albright, X. Yang, J. Li, C. Xia, J. Wu, and S. Yu. 2021. Prioritizing conservation of biodiversity in an alpine region: Distribution pattern and conservation status of seed plants in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Global Ecology and Conservation 32: e01885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01885

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) harbors abundant and diverse plant life owing to its high habitat heterogeneity. However, the distribution pattern of biodiversity hotspots and their conservation status remain unclear. Based on 148,283 high-resolution occurrence coordinates of 13,450 seed plants, w…

de Oliveira, M. H. V., B. M. Torke, and T. E. Almeida. 2021. An inventory of the ferns and lycophytes of the Lower Tapajós River Basin in the Brazilian Amazon reveals collecting biases, sampling gaps, and previously undocumented diversity. Brittonia 73: 459–480. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12228-021-09668-7

Ferns and lycophytes are an excellent group for conservation and species distribution studies because they are closely related to environmental changes. In this study, we analyzed collection gaps, sampling biases, richness distribution, and the species conservation effectiveness of protected areas i…

Rozefelds, A. C., G. Stull, P. Hayes, and D. R. Greenwood. 2020. The fossil record of Icacinaceae in Australia supports long-standing Palaeo-Antarctic rainforest connections in southern high latitudes. Historical Biology 33: 2854–2864. https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2020.1832089

Fossil fruits of Icacinaceae are recorded from two Cenozoic sites in Australia, at Launceston in northern Tasmania and the Poole Creek palaeochannel in northern South Australia, representing the first report of fossil Icacinaceae from Australia. The Launceston material includes two endocarps with br…

Cooper, N., A. L. Bond, J. L. Davis, R. Portela Miguez, L. Tomsett, and K. M. Helgen. 2019. Sex biases in bird and mammal natural history collections. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286: 20192025. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.2025

Natural history specimens are widely used across ecology, evolutionary biology and conservation. Although biological sex may influence all of these areas, it is often overlooked in large-scale studies using museum specimens. If collections are biased towards one sex, studies may not be representativ…

Stull, G. W., B. H. Tiffney, S. R. Manchester, C. D. Rio, and S. L. Wing. 2020. Endocarps of Pyrenacantha (Icacinaceae) from the Early Oligocene of Egypt. International Journal of Plant Sciences 181: 432–442. https://doi.org/10.1086/706854

The fossil record of Pyrenacantha (Phytocreneae tribe, Icacinaceae) includes well-documented species from the Paleogene of North and South America but, to date, no fossils have been described from its present geographic range, the Old World tropics. We document endocarp remains from the early Oligoc…