Addressing Knowledge Shortfalls in Conservation Science: A long way to go, as quickly as possible

Nori, Javier; Maas, Bea; Brum, Fernanda; Villalobos, Fabricio

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110314

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 26 publications

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“…The necessity and urgency to describe biodiversity have become more acute as the biodiversity on earth is declining at an accelerating pace mainly due to anthropogenic influence (Hortal et al, 2015;Nori et al, 2023). While the decline of large and charismatic vertebrates has been well documented and widely recognised, even the megadiverse insect fauna may be in a state of general decline (e.g., Wagner, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

130 years from discovery to description: micro‐CT scanning applied to construct the integrative taxonomy of a forgotten moth from Southern Africa (Lepidoptera: Geometridae)

Englund,

Lee,

Staude

et al. 2024

Systematic Entomology

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X‐ray micro‐computed tomography (micro‐CT) of dried and pinned museum specimens combined with advanced image processing can provide a useful, novel and non‐destructive tool for integrative insect taxonomy. This paper demonstrates how micro‐CT can be applied to provide unambiguous illustrations of diagnostic morphological characters for new taxa description and to understand how micro‐CT imaging may complement other imaging techniques. Following micro‐CT scanning, a semi‐automatic segmentation and volume rendering protocol was used to portray the wing venation and diagnostic structures and ornamentation of male genitalia from multiple angles. Using micro‐CT images, we provide the description of a conspicuous geometrid moth from southern Africa (Lepidoptera: Geometridae), which has been present in collections since 1894, but left without an available name. Using a multigenetic dataset comprising 273 terminal taxa from the superfamily Geometroidea, we constructed a molecular phylogeny to place our study species to an isolated lineage in Geometridae: Larentiinae, tribe Xanthorhoini sensu lato. We describe it as Chloecolora vergetaria new genus, new species Englund & Staude, and provide diverse ecological information on its distribution, habitat, host plant, adult and immature stages, and parasites. We found micro‐CT imaging particularly useful in two‐ and three‐dimensional imaging of wings, providing detailed information for instance on non‐tubular folds that may be difficult to distinguish using other techniques.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%