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Comparing adaptations to noisy city environments with those to natural mountain environments on the community level can provide significant insights that allow an understanding of the impact of anthropogenic noise on invertebrates that employ loud calling songs for mate attraction, especially when each species has its distinct song, as in the case of cicadas. In this study, we investigated the partitioning strategy of cicada assemblages in city and mountain environments by comparing the acoustic features and calling activity patterns of each species, recorded using automated digital recording systems. Our comparison of activity patterns of seasonal and diel calling revealed that there was no significant temporal partitioning of cicada assemblages in either environment. In addition, there was no correlation between the acoustic distance based on spectral features and temporal segregation. Heterospecific spectral overlap was low in both city and mountain environments, although city and mountain cicada assemblages were subject to significantly different levels of anthropogenic or interspecific noise. Furthermore, for the common species found in both environments, the calling activity patterns at both seasonal and diel time scales were significantly consistent across sites and across environments. We suggest that the temporal calling activity is constrained by endogenous factors for each species and is less flexible in response to external factors, such as anthropogenic noise. As a result, cicada assemblages in city environments with low species diversity do not demonstrate a more significant temporal partitioning than those in mountain environments with high species diversity.

Tremoctopus violaceus is a small species of pelagic octopods which inhabit in subtropical and tropical open oceans. The mitogenome of T. violaceus is 16,015 base pairs (bp) in length and contained 13 protein-coding genes, two rRNA genes, and 22 tRNA genes. Sequence analysis showed that the overall base composition is 31.5% for A, 40.47% for T, 7.79% for C, and 20.24% for G. The newly characterized complete mitochondrial genome of T. violaceus will provide essential data for further studies of this endangered species.

A new species of land-locked freshwater shrimp, Neocaridinafonticulatasp. n. (Atyidae), is described from Kenting, Hengchun Peninsula, Pingtung County, southern Taiwan. This new species can be distinguished from its congeners by rostrum structure, pereiopods, and male first and second pleopods. The molecular evidence of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) also supports the establishment of a new species. This is the third endemic species of Neocaridina known from Taiwan.