Bush Blitz: journeys of discovery in the Australian outback

Abstract

Bush Blitz is an innovative and ambitious partnership between the Australian Biological Resources Study, BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities and the Earthwatch Institute (Australia) that aims to fill critical gaps in the knowledge of the biodiversity of Australia (http://www.bushblitz.org.au). Since its inception in 2009, over 900 putative new species of animals and plants have been discovered in Australian conservation reserves. As a unique approach to surveys in often-remote areas of the Australian outback, the Bush Blitz program has been highly successful and highlights the need for ongoing exploration and research to adequately document the biodiversity of Australia. This special issue of Australian Systematic Botany describes some of the newly discovered species and showcases the botanical results of the Bush Blitz program.

Systematics and Analysis of the Radiation of Orthotylini Plant Bugs Associated with Callitroid Conifers in Australia: Description of Five New Genera and 32 New Species (Heteroptera: Miridae: Orthotylinae)

“…collected additional material in 2005, targeting previously unsampled species of Callitris in eastern Australia and Actinostrobus in Western Australia. After 2008, additional specimens were collected during Bush Blitz surveys (Preece et al, 2015;Cassis and Symonds, 2016). All but one of the 20 species of Callitris have been sampled (see below for Actinostrobus), and in many cases sampled in multiple locations across their ranges, including morphologically variant populations of some Callitris species in northeastern Queensland.…”

“…The plant bug family Miridae (Insecta: Hemiptera: Heteroptera) is a hyperdiverse family of mostly phytophagous insects, with 11,000+ described species globally (Schuh, -2013. The family is poorly documented in the Southern Hemisphere (Cassis et al, 2007), no more so than in Australia, where the Plant Bug Inventory (Cassis and Schuh, 2012;Schuh, 2012) and Bush Blitz (Preece et al, 2015) programs have resulted in the discovery of a largely unknown mirid fauna, and facilitated descriptive works that are improving this situation (Weirauch, 2007;Cassis, 2008;Soto and Weirauch, 2009;Tatarnic, 2009;Cassis et al, 2010;Schuh and Pedraza, 2010;Schuh and Weirauch, 2010;Menard and Schuh, 2011;Namyatova et al, 2011;Schuh and Menard, 2011;Cheng et al, 2012a;Cassis and Symonds, 2014a;2014b;Cassis and Symonds, 2016;Schuh and Schwartz, 2016;Chin and Cassis, in press).…”

New genus and species of stilt bug (Hemiptera: Berytidae) from Western Australia

“…Here, I describe a new genus and species based primarily on material collected in Cape Range, Western Australia, through the Bush Blitz biodiversity survey program, a partnership between Parks Australia, the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS), BHP and the environmental charity Earthwatch Australia (Preece et al . 2015: https://bushblitz.org.au/).…”

“…However, with very few taxonomists working on this group and a large proportion of Australian insects yet to be discovered and described (Austin et al 2004), further species probably remain to be discovered. Here, I describe a new genus and species based primarily on material collected in Cape Range, Western Australia, through the Bush Blitz biodiversity survey program, a partnership between Parks Australia, the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS), BHP and the environmental charity Earthwatch Australia (Preece et al 2015: https://bushblitz.org.au/).…”

Revision of the staphylinoid and ground-dwelling genus Carvalhoma Slater & Gross (Insecta: Heteroptera: Miridae: Cylapinae) of Australia

“…Until the mid-1990s the family received little taxonomic attention in Australia, with less than 200 species described (Cassis & Gross 1995). Recent surveys of the Plant Bug Inventory (Cassis et al 2007) and Bush Blitz (www.bushblitz.org.au) projects (Preece et al 2014) have reversed our notion that the family is depauperate in Australia, with many hundreds of new species discovered and remaining to be described (e.g., Cassis & Symonds 2014a, 2014b. Over the last decade many of these new Australian mirid taxa have been described, particularly those belonging to the subfamilies Orthotylinae (e.g., Cassis 2008;Tatarnic 2009;Namyatova et al 2011;Cheng et al 2012;Cassis & Symonds 2014a, 2014b, Phylinae (e.g., Soto & Weirauch 2009;Schuh & Weirauch 2010;Schuh & Menard, 2011;Schuh & Pedraza 2011), and Bryocorinae (e.g., Namyatova & Cassis 2012, 2013, 2015.…”