Publications by authors named "Robin James Smith"

Ostracods are tiny bivalved crustaceans, which have colonised almost all aquatic ecosystems. Their extensive fossil record, stretching back to the Ordovician, attests to their remarkable success, in part due to their calcitic carapace - a hard bivalved shell that can enclose the rest of the body for protection against unfavourable environmental conditions. However, the carapace, and the requirement for the limbs to fit within it, has resulted in a reduced number of limbs, which in turn show evidence of reduction from a biramous crustacean limb.

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Samples obtained from pet shops and a hobbyists aquaria in Japan have revealed a diverse non-marine ostracod fauna, consisting of 19 species, all contaminants of aquaria stocked with exotic fish, shrimps and/or aquatic plants. Of these, six are newly recorded for Japan, including two new species, belonging to the genera Pseudostrandesia and Tanycypris. Pseudostrandesia tenebrarum Smith & Ozawa, 2021, previously suspected to be an alien species in Japan, was again found in pet shops in this study.

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A new species, Potamocypris kusuokai sp. nov., is described based on males and females collected from Kitadaitojima, the northern-most of the Daito Islands, part of the Nansei Island archipelago in southwestern Japan.

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The archipelago of Tsushima is located in the Korea Strait, at the southern end of the Sea of Japan (East Sea), and lies almost equidistant from Korea and Japan. Its non-marine ostracod fauna was previously unknown, although potentially of (palaeo-) zoogeographical interest considering its position. Preliminary surveys of freshwater and brackish habitats on the island in August/September and November/December 2019, revealed a total of 31 species in five families and three superfamilies.

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This article returns to Goffman's early formulations of 'stigma' in outlining a critique of contemporary social scientific uses and abuses of the concept. We argue that whilst Goffman's discussion of stigma is not without its troubles, it has mostly been approached in a manner that treats the concept outside of an appreciation of stigma as a phenomenon of interaction order. More specifically, we discuss and demonstrate how stigma serves an analytic gloss for social relations observable in social settings and in accounts of difference, deviance and degradation.

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Details of the post-embryonic development of two Notodromadidae species, Notodromas trulla Smith Kamiya, 2014 and Newnhamia fenestrata King, 1855, (subfamily Notodromadinae) are provided, and compared with previous ontogenetic studies on other podocopid families and superfamilies. The ontogenetic development is generally similar to other families, consisting of eight free-living juvenile stages and one adult stage, but the first instar, with a leg-like mandible, resembles that of the Cyprididae, rather than other families. From the A-7 instar onwards, the ventral margin of the carapace is a flattened ovoid, and the dorsolateral eye cups are separated, resembling those of the adults, suggesting that a neustonic lifestyle, similar to that of the adults, is embraced from a very early age.

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An undescribed species of freshwater ostracod belonging to the genus Savatenalinton and Martens, 2009 was collected from two pet shops in the Kanto region of central Japan. This species, herein named sp. nov.

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Rice is the staple food crop for approximately half the world's population, but some common and abundant taxa inhabiting rice fields, such as ostracods, are poorly studied. For many ostracod species only brief, initial descriptions are available, hindering reliable identifications, and so their ecological roles in rice fields remain obscure. This study partially addresses this problem by assessing the taxonomic validity of six species of Cyprinotinae ostracods reported from rice fields in Japan and South Korea: Cyprinotus  uenoi Brehm, 1936, Hemicypris megalops Sars, 1903, Hemicypris ovata Sars, 1903, Hemicypris vulgaris Okubo, 1990, Heterocypris rotundata (Bronstein, 1928), and Hemicypris kawagaensis Okubo, 2004 nomen nudum.

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Ilyocypris species are abundant and widespread in North East Asian rice fields, but for many species their taxonomy is poorly defined, which negatively impacts ecological studies on rice field ecosystems. Herein, two of these species, Ilyocypris dentifera Sars, 1903 and Ilyocypris japonica Okubo, 1990, are redescribed, and a third species, Ilyocypris incus sp. nov.

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This article develops a situational approach to understanding urban public life and, in particular, the production of urban territories. Our aim is to examine the ways in which city space might be understood as comprising multiple, shifting, mobile and rhythmed territories. We argue that such territories are best understood through attending to their everyday production and negotiation, rather than handling territory as an a priori construct.

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Surveys of caves in South Korea yielded a new species of the ostracod genus Cavernocypris Hartmann, 1964, herein described as Cavernocypris danielopoli Smith & Kamiya n. sp. This is the fifth described species in this widely distributed genus, and can be discriminated from its congeners by the highly triangular shape of the carapace in lateral view, caused by a large dorsal protrusion on the left valve.

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