Imagine if we could compute across phenotype data as easily as genomic data; this article calls for efforts to realize this vision and discusses the potential benefits.

The range of hosts exploited by a parasite is determined by several factors, including host availability, infectivity and exploitability. Each of these can be the target of natural selection on both host and parasite, which will determine the local outcome of interactions, and potentially lead to coevolution. However, geographical variation in host use and specificity has rarely been investigated. Maculinea (= Phengaris ) butterflies are brood parasites of Myrmica ants that are patchily distributed across the Palæarctic and have been studied extensively in Europe. Here, we review the published records of ant host use by the European Maculinea species, as well as providing new host ant records for more than 100 sites across Europe. This comprehensive survey demonstrates that while all but one of the Myrmica species found on Maculinea sites have been recorded as hosts, the most common is often disproportionately highly exploited. Host sharing and host switching are both relatively common, but there is evidence of specialization at many sites, which varies among Maculinea species. We show that most Maculinea display the features expected for coevolution to occur in a geographic mosaic, which has probably allowed these rare butterflies to persist in Europe. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The coevolutionary biology of brood parasitism: from mechanism to pattern’.

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This revision treats the members of the Palaearctic Tetramorium ferox species-complex on the basis of external morphology and using high precision morphometrics. With this approach we recognize five taxa and six synonyms: Tetramorium aegeum Radchenko, 1992b; Tetramorium densopilosum Radchenko & Arakelian, 1990; Tetramorium diomedeum Emery, 1908; Tetramorium ferox Ruzsky, 1903; and Tetramorium feroxoide Dlussky & Zabelin, 1985. Tetramorium laevior Menozzi, 1936 is synonymized with Tetramorium diomedeum. Tetramorium confinis Radchenko & Arakelian, 1990, Tetramorium perspicax Radchenko, 1992b, and Tetramorium ferox subsp. silhavyi Kratochvil, 1941 are synonymized with Tetramorium ferox. Tetramorium bursakovi Radchenko, 1992a is synonymized with Tetramorium feroxoide. A key and redescriptions for workers and gynes are given. SEM photos for workers and gynes of each species are provided. A morphology-based definition of the species complex for workers, gynes and males is also provided.

In the current revisionary work, the Temnothorax nylanderi species-group of myrmicine ants is characterized. Eighteen species belonging to this group in the Ponto-Mediterranean region are described or redefined based on an integrative approach that combines exploratory analyses of morphometric data and of a 658bp fragment of the mitochondrial gene for the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (CO I). The species group is subdivided into five species complexes: T. angustifrons complex, T. lichtensteini complex, T. nylanderi complex, T. parvulus complex, T. sordidulus complex, and two species, T. angulinodis sp. n. and T. flavicornis (Emery, 1870) form their own lineages. We describe seven new species (T. angulinodis sp. n., T. angustifrons sp. n., T. ariadnae sp. n., T. helenae sp. n., T. lucidus sp. n., T. similis sp. n., T. subtilis sp. n.), raise T. tergestinus (FINZI, 1928) stat.n. to species level, and propose a new junior synonymy for T. saxonicus (SEIFERT, 1995) syn.n. (junior synonym of T. tergestinus). We describe the worker caste and provide high quality images and distributional maps for all eighteen species. Furthermore, we provide a decision tree as an alternative identification key that visually gives an overview of this species-group. We make the first application to Formicidae of the Semantic Phenotype approach that has been used in previous taxonomic revisions.