Disjunct biogeographic patterns of similar species remain enigmatic within evolutionary biology. Disparate distributions typically reflect species responses to major historical events including past climate change, tectonics, dispersal, and local extinction.
We analysed COI and ITS sequences from a total of 69 European Pyrrhosoma nymphula (Sulzer, 1776) and three P. elisabethae Schmidt, 1948 to explore species boundaries and phylogeographic patterns in their Western Palearctic distributions.
Information (published and unpublished) on ecology, phenology, and geographical distribution of Lindenia tetraphylla is reviewed. It reaches from Sardinia (Italy; in the past also Spain) in the West, along the northern coasts of the Mediterranean, the Caspian region and the Middle East, to Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in the East. The southernmost record is…
Coenagrion mercuriale is a threatened damselfly in most parts of its geographic distribution. It is listed as endangered in North Africa, where no data on its biology or ecology are available. This study aims to illustrate the reproductive behaviour and habitat preferences of adults in a population located in north-east Algeria, representing the southern limit…
Although understanding of geographic range shifts of many species in response to global climate change is expanding steadily, little is known about the Himalayan fauna, which in particular is affected by relatively faster warming rates than other parts of the world. Anticipated increases in temperature and changes in hydrological regimes will have significant adverse impacts…
This paper is dedicated to Philip S. Corbet on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
Anisoptera were monitored or sampled regularly at lowland and nearby upland sites in northeastern Algeria during 1992 and 1993. After emerging in lowlands at about sea level in May and June, adults disappeared from lowlands and were then soon encountered in nearby hills at ca 500-1000 m a.s.l. where they aestivated in woodland for about…
The Indian Elattoneura are a difficult group to identify due to their extreme morphological similarity and sparse information in identification keys and on geographical distribution. The ambiguity is prominent among two Peninsular Indian Elattoneura species, E. nigerrima (Laidlaw, 1917) and E. tetrica (Laidlaw, 1917), described a hundred years ago.
Assessment of conservation status is a necessary step before management plans can be formulated. Historically such assessments have a strong bias toward vertebrates, particularly endothermic terrestrial vertebrates (i.e. birds and mammals). Invertebrates, by contrast, tend to be ignored, and many insect groups, despite being species rich and reasonably well studied, such as the Odonata (damselflies…
The East Palaearctic Coenagrion glaciale and C. hylas are characterized by a current disjunct distribution. New data from northern European Russia significantly modify the earlier known pattern of their distribution. The first European records of C. glaciale and a new record of C. hylas west of the Urals are reported from the environs of Pinega…