No abstract

The diversity of the subgenus Panophrys within the genus Megophrys has been revealed to be extremely underestimated from southeastern China. Herpetological surveys coupled with extensive sampling in a longitudinal mountain belt located in southeastern China resulted in the discoveries of six new species of the subgenus Panophrys. Furthermore, the new discoveries support the findings of “micro-endemism”, “sympatric phenomenon” and “sympatric but distant phylogenetically” which appear to be common among Panophrys species, and also indicates that the Asian horned toads would be good candidates for studies on speciation and biogeography, and additionally emphasizes the conservation difficulties of these toads.

Given their recent worldwide declines and extinctions, characterization of species-level diversity is of critical importance for large-scale biodiversity assessments and conservation of amphibians. This task is made difficult by the existence of cryptic species complexes, species groups comprising closely related and morphologically analogous species. The combination of morphology, genetic, and bioacoustic analyses permits robust and accurate species identification. Using these methods, we discovered two undescribed Xenophrys species, namely Xenophrys lini sp. nov. and Xenophrys cheni sp. nov. from the middle range of Luoxiao Mountains, southeast China. These two new species can be reliably distinguished from other known congeners by morphological and morphometric differences, distinctness in male advertisement calls, and substantial genetic distances (>3.6%) based on the mitochondrial 16s and 12s rRNA genes. The two new species, together with X. jinggangensis, are sympatric in the middle range of Luoxiao Mountains but may be isolated altitudinally and ecologically. Our study provides a first step to help resolve previously unrecognized cryptic biodiversity and provides insights into the understanding of Xenophrys diversification in the mountain complexes of southeast China.

Diagnosis of drowning is one of the most difficult issues in forensic practice. A number of methods have been developed over the years to determine whether a person was drowned. Microwave Digestion-Vacuum Filtration-Automated Scanning Electron Microscopy (MD-VF-Auto SEM) method we developed is a new qualitative and quantitative method of diatom test for diagnosis of drowning. The new method is based on microwave digestion technique, vacuum filtration, and automated SEM, which would achieve a maximal recovery of diatoms and identify diatoms easily by SEM with high resolution. This study was designed to evaluate the sensitivity of this method, the recovery of diatom, and loss ratio of centrifugation, which were compared using the MD-VF-Auto SEM method and the conventional acid digestion method. Two groups of samples were designed in the study. Groups A (n = 20) and B (n = 20) were performed by MD-VF-Auto SEM method and the conventional acid digestion method, respectively. In addition, another eight water samples were centrifuged, and the diatoms in the supernatant and precipitate were counted and measured, respectively, in order to find out how many diatoms were lost after centrifugation. The difference between the two groups was statistically highly significant, and about 34 % of diatoms were lost after centrifugation at 4,000 rpm for 15 min. The results showed that the MD-VF-Auto SEM method was more sensitive and specific.

Global climate change is known to affect the assembly of ecological communities by altering species' spatial distribution patterns, but little is known about how climate change may affect community assembly by changing species' temporal co-occurrence patterns, which is highly likely given the widely observed phenological shifts associated with climate change. Here, we analyzed a 29-year phenological data set comprising community-level information on the timing and span of temporal occurrence in 11 seasonally occurring animal taxon groups from 329 local meteorological observatories across China. We show that widespread shifts in phenology have resulted in community-wide changes in the temporal overlap between taxa that are dominated by extensions, and that these changes are largely due to taxa's altered span of temporal occurrence rather than the degree of synchrony in phenological shifts. Importantly, our findings also suggest that climate change may have led to less phenological mismatch than generally presumed, and that the context under which to discuss the ecological consequences of phenological shifts should be expanded beyond asynchronous shifts.