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Diversity And Lifestyle In The Rotifera, Patrick D. Brown
Diversity And Lifestyle In The Rotifera, Patrick D. Brown
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Broad questions regarding community assembly and lifestyle evolution remain unanswered. To answer these questions I used rotifers, common primary consumers present in inland waters. Rotiferan presence in nearly all freshwaters makes them an ideal study system to address questions of metacommunity ecology. Additionally, rotifers possess diverse lifestyles, including sessile, swimming, colonial and solitary forms, allowing them to be used as models of lifestyle evolution. In Chapter 1, I address metacommunity ecology by focusing on inland waters of the Chihuahuan Desert as a study system and investigated rotifer community assembly therein through two published works, Brown et al., 2020 and 2021. …
Phylogeography Of The Natal Puddle Frog Phrynobatrachus Natalensis (Anura: Phrynobatrachidae) In Sub-Saharan Africa, Joshua Adan Lara
Phylogeography Of The Natal Puddle Frog Phrynobatrachus Natalensis (Anura: Phrynobatrachidae) In Sub-Saharan Africa, Joshua Adan Lara
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
The Family Phrynobatrachidae (Laurent, 1941) has one genus (Phrynobatrachus, Günther, 1862) containing 89 species. Commonly known as puddle frogs, they comprise one of the most species rich sub-Saharan amphibian groups. The objective of this study was to investigate P. natalensis from the Albertine Rift (AR) with systematic and phylogeographic methods. One mitochondrial DNA gene (16S = 555 base pairs [bp]) and one nuclear gene (RAG1 = 774 bp) were analyzed for 61 representatives of P. natalensis. Nine cryptic lineages were identified from Angola, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda. Several …
Systematics Of The African River Frog Genus Amietia (Anura: Pyxicephalidae) From Eastern Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Thornton Robert Larson
Systematics Of The African River Frog Genus Amietia (Anura: Pyxicephalidae) From Eastern Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Thornton Robert Larson
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
The African river frog genus Amietia is found near rivers and other lentic water sources throughout central, eastern and southern Africa. Because the genus includes multiple morphologically conservative species, taxonomic studies of river frogs have been limited. We sampled 49 individuals of Amietia from multiple localities in and near the Albertine Rift (AR) of Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. We utilized single-gene (16S) and concatenated (12S, 16S, cytochrome b and RAG1) gene-tree analyses and coalescent species-tree analyses to construct phylogenetic trees. Two divergence dating approaches were used in BEAST, including secondary calibration points with 12S, 16S and …
Systematics Of Leptopelis (Anura: Arthroleptidae) From The Itombwe Plateau, Eastern Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Francisco Portillo
Systematics Of Leptopelis (Anura: Arthroleptidae) From The Itombwe Plateau, Eastern Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Francisco Portillo
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Leptopelis, a genus of Central African treefrogs, includes 51 species that live in tropical forests and savannas. Currently, only two species of Leptopelis are known from the poorly explored Itombwe Plateau in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Itombwe is renowned among conservationists for its rich and endemic amphibian fauna, including: Xenopus itombwensis, Chrysobatrachus cupreonitens, Laurentophryne parkeri, Hyperolius leleupi and at least three species of Arthroleptis. Evolutionary relationships of Itombwe Leptopelis were examined by sequencing two mitochondrial genes (16S: 557 bp [base pairs], cyt b: 620 bp) and one nuclear gene (RAG1: 761 bp). Results recovered strong support for …
A Taxonomic Revision Of The New World Hypoponera Santschi, 1938 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Shawn Thomas Dash
A Taxonomic Revision Of The New World Hypoponera Santschi, 1938 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Shawn Thomas Dash
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
The New World taxa of the pantropic ant genus Hypoponera (Ponerinae: Ponerini) is revised for the first time. The 55 previously recognized taxa have been evaluated using morphological and, when possible, ecological and biogeographical data to resolve taxon validity and species limits. Currently I recognize 42 species of Hypoponera , a number of which are new. I propose the following taxonomic outline: Hypoponera agilis (Borgmeier), Hypoponera aliena (F. Smith), Hypoponera antoniensis (Forel) stat. nov., Hypoponera apateae sp. nov., Hypoponera capilosa sp. nov., Hypoponera clinei sp. nov., Hypoponera clavatula (Emery) [= fiebrigi (Forel) syn. nov., = neglecta (Santschi) syn. nov.], Hypoponera …