Dispatch from the field: ecology of ground-web-building spiders with description of a new species (Araneae, Symphytognathidae)

Abstract

Crassignatha danaugirangensis sp. n. (Araneae: Symphytognathidae) was discovered during a tropical ecology field course held at the Danau Girang Field Centre in Sabah, Malaysia. A taxonomic description and accompanying ecological study were completed as course activities. To assess the ecology of this species, which belongs to the ground-web-building spider community, three habitat types were surveyed: riparian forest, recently inundated riverine forest, and oil palm plantation. Crassignatha danaugirangensis sp. n. is the most abundant ground-web-building spider species in riparian forest; it is rare or absent from the recently inundated forest and was not found in a nearby oil palm plantation. The availability of this taxonomic description may help facilitate the accumulation of data about this species and the role of inundated riverine forest in shaping invertebrate communities.

Three new minute leaf litter beetles discovered by citizen scientists in Maliau Basin, Malaysian Borneo (Coleoptera: Leiodidae, Chrysomelidae)

“…Except for rare exceptions (e.g. Miller et al 2014), after sorting and (coarse) identification, the specimens are usually discarded or stored as bulk samples, even though the materials are likely to be of taxonomic importance. We have recently begun a series of field courses for citizen scientists (which we term "taxon expeditions"; see http://www.taxonexpeditions.com) in which a taxonomic treatment of selected taxa forms a central part of the course work.…”

Integrating and visualizing primary data from prospective and legacy taxonomic literature

“…The dashboards are based on the 37 open access articles in Zootaxa containing treatments on spiders (Table 1 ), and five articles in Biodiversity Data Journal ( Miller et al 2013 , Miller et al 2014 , Deltshev et al 2013 , Crespo et al 2014 , Čandek et al 2013 ; note that data in Čandek et al 2013 have been updated to reflect corrections made by the authors in a corrigendum, Čandek et al 2015 , Miller et al 2015 ). The partitions of data offer novel ways to explore and visualize taxonomic research information from geographic, institutional, temporal, individual, and specimen-oriented perspectives.…”

“…The rate of publication in taxonomy continues to rise, as does the potential for accelerated transition from discovery to publication ( Miller et al 2014 ). Therefore, while addressing the challenge of legacy literature XML markup, we should not continue adding to the backlog.…”

From field courses to DNA barcoding data release for West Papua - making specimens and identifications from university courses more sustainable

“…In a very similar context, DNA barcoding applied to samples obtained through activities of citizen scientists in remote localities ( Janzen and Hallwachs 2011 , Miller et al 2014 , Wilson et al 2015 , Jisming-See et al 2016 , Loos et al 2015 , Schilthuizen et al 2017 , Suprayitno et al 2017 , Freitag et al 2018 ) could make significant, objective contributions to our understanding of the patterns of global biodiversity.…”