Examining the relative contribution of local environmental stressors and regional factors in structuring biological communities is essential for biodiversity conservation and environmental assessment, yet their relative roles for different community facets remain elusive. Here, we examined the responses of taxonomic and functional structure of stream macroinvertebrate communities to local and regional factors across a human-induced environmental gradient in the Han River Basin, one subtropical biodiversity hotspot in China. Our objectives were: 1) to examine if functional traits were as effective as traditional taxonomic measures in differentiating anthropogenic disturbances; 2) to compare the relative importance of environmental versus spatial variables and catchment-scale versus reach-scale variables for the two community facets. We found that both species and trait compositions performed well in differentiating anthropogenic disturbances, indicating that both taxonomic and functional structures of macroinvertebrate communities were altered by human activities. Particularly, traits including voltinism, development, adult life duration, dispersal ability, respiration, body size, rheophily, habit and trophic groups appeared to be 1. Download : Download high-res image (101KB) 2. Download : Download full-size image

Two new Chinese species of the millipede genus Glyphiulus Gervais, 1847, Glyphiulus latus sp. nov. and Glyphiulus liangshanensis sp. nov., from three caves in Sichuan Province are described. According to the structure of the first male leg pair, the new species belong to the javanicus-group.

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Hitherto, 24 species of the Glyphiulus javanicus group have been recorded, all endemic to Southeast Asia, including 14 in China. Nevertheless, this species group needs further exploration. In this context, four new species of this group are described, all collected from limestone caves in Southern China: G. calceus sp. n., G. foetidus sp. n., G. guangnanensis sp. n., and G. impletus sp. n. They can be separated easily from each other and other congeners by their carinotaxic formulae, the structures of male legs I, and the gonopods. Due to the absence of any troglomorphic traits in our specimens, they may be troglophilic only.

The male of Glyphiulus formosus (Pocock, 1895) is described for the first time based on specimens collected from Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. According to the male sexual characters, this species is verified to be a member of the G. javanicus group. In addition, a DNA barcode of the partial COI gene of G. formosus is provided.

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