Biogeographic patterns of tenebrionid beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) on four island groups in the south Aegean Sea

Breeding land birds across the Greek islands: a biogeographic study with emphasis on faunal similarity, species–area relationships and nestedness

“…Besides the recent formation of the north Aegean islands and the Cyclades islands (Dermitzakis and Papanikolaou 1981; Dermitzakis 1990), both can be characterized as the most distant island clusters (highest mean distance from the nearest mainland and highest mean distance from the larger nearest islands) (see Table 1). This pattern agrees with the tenebrionid beetles in the south Aegean region (Trichas et al 2008). Conversely, lower values are typical for the less distant islands in the southernmost Aegean region.…”

“…This pattern agrees with the tenebrionid beetles in the south Aegean region (Trichas et al 2008). Regarding tenebrionid beetles of the Aegean region, the slope of the species-area relationship according to Trichas et al (2008) was 0.28, or 0.26 as proposed by Fattorini (2002), but still lower than the z value for land birds in the same broad region. This is in accordance with the aspect that less isolated islands should retain higher immigration rates that Table 6 Correlation (Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient-r) between the rank of islands after packing to maximal nestedness using NODF and island order based on particular features of all 77 islands (AE) as well as of 12 north Aegean islands (NA), 19 Cretan islands (CR), 27 Cyclades islands (CY), and 17 Dodecanese islands (DO) Island features include area, altitudinal range (alt), distance from closest mainland (distm), and distance from nearest larger island (disti) * P \ 0.05, ** P \ 0.001, n.s.…”

“…Nested assemblages of isopods, land snails, and centipedes were better explained by distance from continental Greece and by absolute shorter distance from the mainland, and by distance to the closest continent (degree of isolation), respectively (Sfenthourakis et al 1999;Simaiakis and Martínez-Morales 2010). With respect to the ground beetle fauna from the Cyclades islands, Trichas et al (2008) found evidence that nestedness was significantly explained by the palaeogeography of the area and the degree of isolation.…”

“…Palaeogeographic events contributed to the progressive fragmentation of coastal landscapes of Greece (Dermitzakis and Papanikolaou 1981;Anastasakis and Dermitzakis 1990;Dermitzakis 1990) into the present-day landbridge islands of the Aegean archipelago. Researchers have shown that the species communities on the Aegean islands have been shaped not only by the geotectonic history of the area (e.g., Beerli et al 1996;Douris et al 1998;Trichas et al 2008) but also through more recent eustatic sea level changes (e.g., Bittkau and Comes 2005). Moreover, humans have modified the natural ecosystems resulting in increased fragmentation of habitats.…”

Seasonal patterns of activity of Scolopendra cretica and S. cingulata (Chilopoda, Scolopendromorpha) in East Mediterranean maquis ecosystem

“…However, the fact that microhabitat preference was temporally consistent at all sites and did not affect the activity of the two studied scolopendromorph species suggests that activity of the two scolopendrids is probably due to intrinsic factors and less influenced by the abiotic factors. This evidence reinforces our notion that S. cretica and S. cingulata have a long history in the east Mediterranean area (Simaiakis et al 2012), resulting in a considerable relaxation period at least for S. cretica (see also Triantis et al 2008 andTrichas et al 2008), during which S. cretica remained isolated in Crete for about 5.5 Ma (Simaiakis and Mylonas 2008) and S. cingulata in a wider area that cause congruent ecological demands. Lewis (1972) stated that "centipedes of the family Scolopendridae have attracted little attention from ecologists and little work has been done on their life histories".…”