A preliminary phylogeny of the South African Lentulidae

Abstract

BackgroundThe grasshopper family Lentulidae is endemic to eastern and southern Africa, with its center of diversity situated in South Africa, the highest diversity being found in the Cape Floristic Region, which is one of the global biodiversity hotspots. The family consists of 35 genera sorted in two subfamilies. This study provides first insights into the phylogeny of Lentulidae. Two mitochondrial genes (12S and NDS) were sequenced and the phylogeny was inferred through Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference.ResultsOur results indicate that the current classification into the subfamilies Lentulinae and Shelforditinae may be incorrect as Uvarovidium, Leatettix (Shelforditinae) and Devylderia (Lentulinae) clustered together in one main clade, while Betiscoides, Basutacris and Gymnidium (all Lentulinae) formed the second main clade. The genera Uvarovidium and Leatettix, which had been assigned to the Acrididae (subfamily Hemiacridinae) in the past, grouped within the Lentulidae, confirming their current assignment to this family. The East African Usambilla group is likely to represent a sister clade to the south African Lentula and Eremidium. Diversification patterns in the genus Devylderia and Betiscoides suggest a higher number of species than currently known.ConclusionsOur phylogeny is not in line with the current systematics of Lentulidae, suggesting that a broader sampling and a study of the genitalia would be useful to clarify the taxonomy. Furthermore, some genera (particularly Betiscoides and Devylderia) are in need of taxonomic revision, as the number of species within these genera is likely to be higher than the current taxonomy suggests.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s41065-015-0005-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Influence of pre-pregnancy body mass index (p-BMI) and gestational weight gain (GWG) on DNA methylation and protein expression of obesogenic genes in umbilical vein

“…The present study adds to a growing list of clinical and epigenetic evidence supporting the role of perinatal environment in modulation of DNA methylation in newborn tissues [42], suggesting that DNA methylation linked to the pregnant women nutritional status may have specific target genes that may be linked to the phenotype of risk for obesity later in life. SNPs of GNPDA2 , PGC1α , and LEPR genes contribute to an increased risk of obesity development in Mexican population [28,30–32], and some evidence strongly suggests that obesity-associated polymorphisms are linked with proximal gene regulation, such as enhancers and promoter regions that are differential methylated [43]. According to our knowledge, this study is the first one examining DNA methylation status in a single locus of GNPDA2 promoter, and the third one that evaluated the PGC1α promoter methylation status in umbilical cord [44,45].…”

“…GWAS studies have identified common genetic variants associated with BMI of children and adults among European, Chinese, Japanese and Mexican populations [16,26–28], suggesting that there is a genetic risk for obesity [29]. Specific variants of GNPDA2 , PGC1α and LEPR genes have shown a strong association with Mexican population’s BMI, increasing the risk of obesity [28,30–32], although the control mechanisms of obesogenic genes expression during early development are still unknown.…”

Historical diversification and biogeography of the endemic southern African dung beetle genus, Epirinus (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae)

“…Therefore, the southeastern Cape is proposed as both a cradle and a refuge for Epirinus. Climatic refugia in southern Africa have been previously reported in mammals (Lawes et al, 2007;Maswanganye et al, 2017), reptiles (Tolley, Chase, & Forest, 2008;Barlow et al, 2013;Nielsen et al, 2018) and insects (Price, Barker, & Villet, 2007;Sole et al, 2013;Switala, Sole, & Scholtz, 2014;Matenaar, Bröder, & Hochkirch, 2016;Strümpher et al, 2016;Daniel et al, 2020b;Hemp et al, 2020), supporting the idea of climatically driven speciation of…”

Traits and land transformation change the fortunes of grasshopper generalists vs. specialists in a biodiversity hotspot

“…Summary of findings of grasshopper use of different patches in the agro-natural landscape of Cape Floristic Region (CFR): arrows in the graph point towards inclusion; HMG -high mobility, generalist feeders, LMG -low mobility, specialist feeders Most Lentulidae, Hemiacridinae, Eyprepocnemidinae, Pyrgomorphidae and some Oediponidae (mostly apterous to brachypterous, localised/endemic, forb to mixed feeders with limited to medium mobility) species use only one or few habitat patches in heterogeneous landscapes. This is because most species in these groups, especially Hemiacrididae (Spearman, 2013) and Lentulidae species (except for a few, such as E. ottei), are only associated with fynbos with slight changes in densities throughout the seasons (Matenaar et al, 2014(Matenaar et al, , 2018. Under optimum environmental conditions these species will locate the best possible ha-bitats in the fynbos or any other patch on the landscape within a particular period of the year (Loreau et al, 2013).…”