Forecasting deforestation and carbon loss across New Guinea using machine learning and cellular automata.

The island of New Guinea harbors some of the world's most biologically diverse and highly endemic tropical ecosystems. Nevertheless, progressing land-use change in the region threatens their integrity, which will adversely affect their biodiversity as well as carbon stocks and fluxes. Our objectives were to (1) compare deforestation drivers between Indonesian New Guinea and Papua New Guinea, (2) identify areas with a high risk of future deforestation under different development scenarios, and (3) evaluate the effects of potential deforestation scenarios on carbon pools.

Revision of the group with descriptions of 42 new species from New Guinea (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae, Copelatinae).

The group is the second species group of the New Guinean representatives of the recently described genus Shaverdo et al., 2023. The group is mainly defined by distinct scale- and/or spinula-like surface structures of the dorsal sclerite of the median lobe.

 gen. nov., a new genus of Australasian diving beetles (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae, Copelatinae), with the discovery of 31 new species from New Guinea.

Herein, (type species: W.J. Macleay, 1871) is described for a distinctive lineage of predominantly Australasian species previously assigned to Erichson, 1832.

New Guinean orogenic dynamics and biota evolution revealed using a custom geospatial analysis pipeline.

Background: The New Guinean archipelago has been shaped by millions of years of plate tectonic activity combined with long-term fluctuations in climate and sea level. These processes combined with New Guinea's location at the tectonic junction between the Australian and Pacific plates are inherently linked to the evolution of its rich endemic biota. With the advent of molecular phylogenetics and an increasing amount of geological data, the field of New Guinean biogeography begins to be reinvigorated.

Trade-offs between multifunctionality and profit in tropical smallholder landscapes.

Land-use transitions can enhance the livelihoods of smallholder farmers but potential economic-ecological trade-offs remain poorly understood. Here, we present an interdisciplinary study of the environmental, social and economic consequences of land-use transitions in a tropical smallholder landscape on Sumatra, Indonesia. We find widespread biodiversity-profit trade-offs resulting from land-use transitions from forest and agroforestry systems to rubber and oil palm monocultures, for 26,894 aboveground and belowground species and whole-ecosystem multidiversity.

Stream flow alone does not predict population structure of diving beetles across complex tropical landscapes.

Recent theoretical advances have hypothesized a central role of habitat persistence on population genetic structure and resulting biodiversity patterns of freshwater organisms. Here, we address the hypothesis that lotic species, or lineages adapted to comparably geologically stable running water habitats (streams and their marginal habitats), have high levels of endemicity and phylogeographic structure due to the persistent nature of their habitat. We use a nextRAD DNA sequencing approach to investigate the population structure and phylogeography of a putatively widespread New Guinean species of diving beetle, Philaccolilus ameliae (Dytiscidae).

Phylogeography and population genomics of a lotic water beetle across a complex tropical landscape.

The habitat template concept applied to a freshwater system indicates that lotic species, or those which occupy permanent habitats along stream courses, are less dispersive than lentic species, or those that occur in more ephemeral aquatic habitats. Thus, populations of lotic species will be more structured than those of lentic species. Stream courses include both flowing water and small, stagnant microhabitats that can provide refuge when streams are low.

A new, widely distributed species of the Exocelina ekari-group from West Papua (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae, Copelatinae).

Exocelina manokwariensis sp. n. from West Papua is placed into the Exocelina ekari-group based on the structure of its male genitalia.

Description of 23 new species of the Exocelinaekari-group from New Guinea, with a key to all representatives of the species group (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae, Copelatinae).

Twenty three new species of Exocelina Broun, 1886 from New Guinea are described herein: Exocelinabewaniensis sp. n., Exocelinabismarckensis sp.