Evolutionary history of tyrosine-supplementing endosymbionts in pollen-feeding beetles.

Many insects feeding on nutritionally challenging diets like plant sap, leaves, or wood engage in ancient associations with bacterial symbionts that supplement limiting nutrients or produce digestive or detoxifying enzymes. However, the distribution, function, and evolutionary dynamics of microbial symbionts in insects exploiting other plant tissues or relying on a predacious diet remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated the evolutionary history and function of the intracellular gamma-proteobacterial symbiont "Candidatus Dasytiphilus stammeri" in soft-winged flower beetles (Coleoptera, Melyridae, Dasytinae) that transition from saprophagy or carnivory to palynivory (pollen-feeding) between larval and adult stage.

Sternodea arcana, new species (Coleoptera: Cryptophagidae: Caenoscelini): part of the Nearctic fauna?

The leaf litter-inhabiting genus Sternodea Reitter (Cryptophagidae: Cryptophaginae: Caenoscelini) presently contains seven Palearctic species and up to 27 undescribed species from North and Central America. Here we describe Sternodea arcana, new species, ostensibly from Florida but possibly mislabeled, and likely originating from Mexico or Central America. Consequently, the existence of Sternodea among the North American cryptophagid fauna is unknown.

Cedraderus, a new genus for "Xylophilus" constrictus Fall (Coleoptera: Tenebrionoidea: Aderidae).

Cedraderus, new genus is erected for a single species described from California, USA, Cedraderus constrictus (Fall, 1910), new combination, and distinguished from all other aderid genera based on the pronotum having subapical and sub-basal sulci, presence of a supraepipleural groove on the elytron, lack of sexual dimorphism and setal brush on the metafemora, and abdominal ventrites 1 and 2 connate with a complete suture.

Annotated checklist of the beetles (Coleoptera) of the California Channel Islands.

The beetle fauna of the California Channel Islands is here enumerated for the first time in over 120 years. We provide an annotated checklist documenting species-by-island diversity from an exhaustive literature review and analysis of a compiled dataset of 26,609 digitized specimen records to which were added over 3,000 individual specimen determinations. We report 825 unique species from 514 genera and 71 families (including 17 new family records) comprising 1,829 species-by-island records.

Integrated phylogenomics and fossil data illuminate the evolution of beetles.

Beetles constitute the most biodiverse animal order with over 380 000 described species and possibly several million more yet unnamed. Recent phylogenomic studies have arrived at considerably incongruent topologies and widely varying estimates of divergence dates for major beetle clades. Here, we use a dataset of 68 single-copy nuclear protein-coding (NPC) genes sampling 129 out of the 193 recognized extant families as well as the first comprehensive set of fully justified fossil calibrations to recover a refined timescale of beetle evolution.

Mesozoic sooty mould beetles as living relicts in New Zealand.

New Zealand is an island continent that completed its split from the Gondwanan continent at 52 Ma, harbouring an iconic biota of tuatara, kiwi and weta. The sooty mould community is a distinctive trophic element of New Zealand forest ecosystems that is driven by plant-feeding sternorrhynchan Hemiptera. These produce honeydew, which supports fungal growth, which in turn supports numerous endemic invertebrates, including endemic New Zealand beetle families.

On the identity of Guillebeau, 1894 (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae, Phalacridae).

The genus Sternosternus Guillebeau, 1894 was described as an aberrant taxon of the family Phalacridae from Sumatra, based on the unique morphology of its meso- and metaventrite resembling those of Cetonia aurata Linnaeus, 1758 (Guillebeau 1894). It contained the single species, S. grouvellei Guillebeau, 1894, known from a single specimen.

Soup to Tree: The Phylogeny of Beetles Inferred by Mitochondrial Metagenomics of a Bornean Rainforest Sample.

In spite of the growth of molecular ecology, systematics and next-generation sequencing, the discovery and analysis of diversity is not currently integrated with building the tree-of-life. Tropical arthropod ecologists are well placed to accelerate this process if all specimens obtained through mass-trapping, many of which will be new species, could be incorporated routinely into phylogeny reconstruction. Here we test a shotgun sequencing approach, whereby mitochondrial genomes are assembled from complex ecological mixtures through mitochondrial metagenomics, and demonstrate how the approach overcomes many of the taxonomic impediments to the study of biodiversity.

A new extant species of Electribius Crowson from Honduras (Coleoptera: Elateroidea: Artematopodidae).

A new extant species of Electribius Crowson, E. llamae sp.n.

A review of the genus Lamellipalpodes Maulik (Coleoptera: Lampyridae).

The Ototretinae genus Lamellipalpodes Maulik, 1921 is reviewed. Four species are proposed as new to science, L. bajhangensis Bocakova sp.

Genus-level revision of the family Phalacridae (Coleoptera: Cucujoidea).

A pre-phylogenetic revision of the family Phalacridae at the genus level is presented. Twenty-eight new generic synonymies are established as follows: Acylomus Sharp 1888 (=Liophalacrus Sharp 1888, syn. nov.

Role of ipsdienol, ipsenol, and cis-verbenol in chemical ecology of Ips avulsus, Ips calligraphus, and Ips grandicollis (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae).

Stressed or damaged pine (Pinus sp.) trees in the southeastern United States are often colonized simultaneously by three southern Ips species (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae): small southern pine engraver, Ips avulsus (Eichhoff); sixspined ips, Ips calligraphus (Germar); and eastern fivespined ips, Ips grandicollis (Eichhoff). All three species mediate colonization of host material with volatile pheromones.