Twenty years of Dipterology through the pages of Zootaxa.

We present a summary and analysis of the Diptera-related information published in Zootaxa from 2001 to 2020, with a focus on taxonomic papers. Altogether, 2,527 papers on Diptera were published, including 2,032 taxonomic papers and 1,931 papers containing new nomenclatural acts, equivalent to 22% of all publications with new nomenclatural acts for Diptera. The new nomenclatural acts include 7,431 new species, 277 new genera, 2,003 new synonymies, and 1,617 new combinations.

Small, uniform, and rarely collected-an integrated taxonomic revision of Afromicracis bark beetles (Coleoptera, Scolytinae).

Afromicracis is typically found in small twigs and lianas, on the African mainland from Ghana to Ethiopia and south to the Cape region. Due to their small and uniform shape, previous classifications were largely misleading. The genus is revised with a total of 16 valid species in the genus.

Revision of Dendrochilus (Coleoptera, Scolytinae)-with description of two new species from Tanzania.

The genus Dendrochilus Schedl, 1963 is revised. Two new species are described from the Udzungwa Mountains in Tanzania. Dendrochilus tener sp.

Laximicracis-a new genus of Afrotropical Micracidini beetles (Coleoptera, Scolytinae).

During the revision of the micracidine genus Afromicracis Schedl, 1959, several species with unusual features required designation of a new genus. Features separating Laximicracis Jordal gen. nov.

Origin and evolution of fungus farming in wood-boring Coleoptera - a palaeontological perspective.

Insect-fungus mutualism is one of the better-studied symbiotic interactions in nature. Ambrosia fungi are an ecological assemblage of unrelated fungi that are cultivated by ambrosia beetles in their galleries as obligate food for larvae. Despite recently increased research interest, it remains unclear which ecological factors facilitated the origin of fungus farming, and how it transformed into a symbiotic relationship with obligate dependency.

Global distribution and evolutionary transitions of angiosperm sexual systems.

Angiosperm sexual systems are fundamental to the evolution and distribution of plant diversity, yet spatiotemporal patterns in angiosperm sexual systems and their drivers remain poorly known. Using data on sexual systems and distributions of 68453 angiosperm species, we present the first global maps of sexual system frequencies and evaluate sexual system evolution during the Cenozoic. Frequencies of dioecy and monoecy increase with latitude, while hermaphrodites are more frequent in warm and arid regions.

Phytogeographic History of the Tea Family Inferred Through High-Resolution Phylogeny and Fossils.

The tea family (Theaceae) has a highly unusual amphi-Pacific disjunct distribution: most extant species in the family are restricted to subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests in East Asia, while a handful of species occur exclusively in the subtropical and tropical Americas. Here, we used an approach that integrates the rich fossil evidence of this group with phylogenies in biogeographic analysis to study the processes behind this distribution pattern. We first combined genome-skimming sequencing with existing molecular data to build a robust species-level phylogeny for c.

New insights into early medieval Islamic cuisine: Organic residue analysis of pottery from rural and urban Sicily.

Sicily, during the 9th-12th century AD, thrived politically, economically, and culturally under Islamic political rule and the capital of Palermo stood as a cultural and political centre in the Mediterranean Islamic world. However, to what extent the lifeways of the people that experienced these regimes were impacted during this time is not well understood, particularly those from lesser studied rural contexts. This paper presents the first organic residue analysis of 134 cooking pots and other domestic containers dating to the 9th -12th century in order to gain new insights into the culinary practices during this significant period.

Successful application of ancient DNA extraction and library construction protocols to museum wet collection specimens.

Millions of scientific specimens are housed in museum collections, a large part of which are fluid preserved. The use of formaldehyde as fixative and subsequent storage in ethanol is especially common in ichthyology and herpetology. This type of preservation damages DNA and reduces the chance of successful retrieval of genetic data.

Neotropical Kieffer, 1921 (Diptera, Chironomidae): Key, eleven new species, re-descriptions, new combination and new records.

Nine new species of Kieffer, , , , , , , , and are described and figured, based on adult males collected in Brazil and on an adult male from Mexico; is described as male, pupa and larva based on a reared specimen from Brazil. Roback, 1960 and Roback, 1960 are re-described and recorded from Brazil. Mendes & Andersen, 2009 is transferred to Reiss & Sublette, 1985 and the diagnosis of is emended.

No evidence for widespread island extinctions after Pleistocene hominin arrival.

The arrival of modern humans into previously unoccupied island ecosystems is closely linked to widespread extinction, and a key reason cited for Pleistocene megafauna extinction is anthropogenic overhunting. A common assumption based on late Holocene records is that humans always negatively impact insular biotas, which requires an extrapolation of recent human behavior and technology into the archaeological past. Hominins have been on islands since at least the early Pleistocene and for at least 50 thousand y (ka).

Hiding in plain sight- (Ctenophora) in Norwegian waters.

Cydippid ctenophores of genus have been rarely reported from the north-east Atlantic in the scientific literature. The conspicuous lack of previous records is likely attributable to methodological constraints detrimental to sampling ctenophores, including the use of plankton nets and preservation of samples as well as poor identification literature and a lack of taxonomic expertise on gelatinous zooplankton. Here, we have compiled published and novel records as well as documented diver observations, of spp.

Annelids of the eastern Australian abyss collected by the 2017 RV 'Investigator' voyage.

In Australia, the deep-water (bathyal and abyssal) benthic invertebrate fauna is poorly known in comparison with that of shallow (subtidal and shelf) habitats. Benthic fauna from the deep eastern Australian margin was sampled systematically for the first time during 2017 RV 'Investigator' voyage 'Sampling the Abyss'. Box core, Brenke sledge, and beam trawl samples were collected at one-degree intervals from Tasmania, 42°S, to southern Queensland, 24°S, from 900 to 4800 m depth.

Size variation in mid-Holocene North Atlantic Puffins indicates a dynamic response to climate change.

Seabirds are one of the most at-risk groups, with many species in decline. In Scandinavia, seabirds are at a heightened risk of extinction due to accelerated global warming. Norway is home to significant portion of the European Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) populations, but Norwegian populations have declined significantly during the last decades.

Patterns of host tree use within a lineage of saproxlic snout-less weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae: Scolytini).

The influence of plants in the diversification of herbivorous insects, specifically those that utilize moribund and dead hosts, is little explored. Host shifts are expected because the effectiveness of toxic secondary chemicals is lessened by decay of dead plants. Feeding on dead plants also releases herbivorous insect lineages from diversifying within a particular plant lineage.

Assessment of mitochondrial genomes for heterobranch gastropod phylogenetics.

Background: Heterobranchia is a diverse clade of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial gastropod molluscs. It includes such disparate taxa as nudibranchs, sea hares, bubble snails, pulmonate land snails and slugs, and a number of (mostly small-bodied) poorly known snails and slugs collectively referred to as the "lower heterobranchs". Evolutionary relationships within Heterobranchia have been challenging to resolve and the group has been subject to frequent and significant taxonomic revision.

New insights into the morphology and evolution of the ventral pharynx and jaws in Histriobdellidae (Eunicida, Annelida).

The jaw apparatus in several annelid families represents a powerful tool for systematic approaches and evolutionary investigations. Nevertheless, for several taxa, this character complex has scarcely been investigated, and complete comparative analyses of all annelid jaws are lacking. In our comprehensive study, we described the fine structure of the jaw apparatus and the ventral pharyngeal organ (VPO) in Histriobdella homari - a minute ectocommensal of lobsters putatively belonging to the Eunicida - using different comparative morphological approaches, including SEM, TEM, CLSM and subsequent 3D reconstruction.

Patterns of coevolution between ambrosia beetle mycangia and the , with five new fungal genera and seven new species.

Ambrosia beetles farm specialised fungi in sapwood tunnels and use pocket-like organs called mycangia to carry propagules of the fungal cultivars. Ambrosia fungi selectively grow in mycangia, which is central to the symbiosis, but the history of coevolution between fungal cultivars and mycangia is poorly understood. The fungal family previously included three ambrosial genera (, , and ), each farmed by one of three distantly related tribes of ambrosia beetles with unique and relatively large mycangium types.

Diversity of oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) in the Svalbard archipelago: a historical overview.

Studies on Oribatida from Svalbard have nearly a 150-year long history. This paper reviews species diversity of Oribatida in Svalbard from a historical aspect, summarizes how often species have been found and detects erroneous reports. A list of 93 oribatid species (including Astigmata) from the Svalbard archipelago is presented.

Scolytodes Ferrari (Coleoptera, Scolytinae) from Ecuador: 40 new species, and a molecular phylogenetic guide to infer species differences.

The genus Scolytodes Ferrari is a highly diverse group of Neotropical bark beetles. Recent collecting by hand and canopy fogging in Ecuador produced many new records. Overlap in species composition between samples from the canopy and the ground was very low, and canopy fogging revealed the highest proportion of undescribed species.

Interrogating Genomic-Scale Data to Resolve Recalcitrant Nodes in the Spider Tree of Life.

Genome-scale data sets are converging on robust, stable phylogenetic hypotheses for many lineages; however, some nodes have shown disagreement across classes of data. We use spiders (Araneae) as a system to identify the causes of incongruence in phylogenetic signal between three classes of data: exons (as in phylotranscriptomics), noncoding regions (included in ultraconserved elements [UCE] analyses), and a combination of both (as in UCE analyses). Gene orthologs, coded as amino acids and nucleotides (with and without third codon positions), were generated by querying published transcriptomes for UCEs, recovering 1,931 UCE loci (codingUCEs).

DNA from resin-embedded organisms: Past, present and future.

Past claims have been made for fossil DNA recovery from various organisms (bacteria, plants, insects and mammals, including humans) dating back in time from thousands to several million years BP. However, many of these recoveries, especially those described from million-year-old amber (fossil resin), have faced criticism as being the result of modern environmental contamination and for lack of reproducibility. Using modern genomic techniques, DNA can be obtained with confidence from a variety of substrates (e.

Spider Diversification Through Space and Time.

Spiders (Araneae) make up a remarkably diverse lineage of predators that have successfully colonized most terrestrial ecosystems. All spiders produce silk, and many species use it to build capture webs with an extraordinary diversity of forms. Spider diversity is distributed in a highly uneven fashion across lineages.

Lichens and associated fungi from Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska.

Lichens are widely acknowledged to be a key component of high latitude ecosystems. However, the time investment needed for full inventories and the lack of taxonomic identification resources for crustose lichen and lichenicolous fungal diversity have hampered efforts to fully gauge the depth of species richness in these ecosystems. Using a combination of classical field inventory and extensive deployment of chemical and molecular analysis, we assessed the diversity of lichens and associated fungi in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska (USA), a mixed landscape of coastal boreal rainforest and early successional low elevation habitats deglaciated after the Little Ice Age.

Species delimitation analyses of NE Atlantic Chaetozone (Annelida, Cirratulidae) reveals hidden diversity among a common and abundant marine annelid.

The polychaetes of the family Cirratulidae (Annelida) are common inhabitants in continental shelf benthic environments and considered an important group of organisms in environmental monitoring surveys. The family represents a taxonomic and systematic challenge, as monophyly of genera and evolutionary relationships within the family remain to be explored in a proper phylogenetic framework. Bitentaculate cirratulids, especially the genus Chaetozone, form one of the most species-diverse group of polychaetes worldwide.