Friday Fellow: Azores Bellflower

by Piter Kehoma Boll

Oceanic Islands are a treasure of biodiversity and include many small and endemic species. When we come to the Azores archipelago, we find one of those little treasures in the form of a small shrub, the so-called Azores bellflower. Taxonomically, the species is named Azorina vidalii, being the only species in the genus Azorina. The genera of the family Campanulaceae (bellflowers) are a mess, though, and this may eventually change.

The Azores bellflower grows in all nine islands that make up the Azores. It likes to grow near the coastline, especially in crevices of the coastal rocks or sandy slopes, but it can also colonize human structures, such as roofs and walls. It likes very exposed locations and is very tolerant to the sea breeze. Although this plant is usually a very small woody shrub with about 30 cm in height, it can grow up to 2 m.

Typical look of the plant. Photo by iNaturalist user experience.NATURE.*

Despite being found across the whole archipelago, the Azores Bellflower is considered an endangered species. There are only about a thousand adult specimens in total. One of the reasons for such a small population may be due to the lack of an efficient pollinator. The flowers are light pink or white and have a shape that suggests birds as the most likely pollinators, but there is no native bird species in the archipelago that could do this job. Several insects, including bees, wasps, flies and moths, sometimes visit the flowers and may be the current pollinators, but most probably none of them is very efficient in this job. The combination of all of them seems to be enough to keep the current population relatively stable.

The beautiful flowers of the Azores bellflower. Photo by iNaturalist user mariamadalena.*

When honeybees visit the plants, they are often more interested in the latex that the Azores bellflowers secrets. The bees look for recent wounds on the plants where latex is leaking and collect it, sometimes having difficulty leaving the plant because the latex is so sticky that the bees get partially glued to the plant. It is thought that the latex has antimicrobial properties, protecting the plant from bacterial infections, and the bees most likely explore this resource to use it as a natural antibiotic in their combs, perhaps mixing it with pollen to make propolis.

A plant with more pinkish flowers. Photo by Attila Steiner.*

The current population of the Azores bellflower is stable but very small, which is the main reason why it is considered endangered. To assure its survival in the next decades or centuries (and beyond), it is essential to preserve the rocky shores where they thrive and, of course, the diversity of pollinators, which are doing their best to bring new generations of this small Azorean jewel.

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References:

Haberle, R. C., Dang, A., Lee, T., Peñaflor, C., Cortes-Burns, H., Oestreich, A., … & Jansen, R. K. (2009). Taxonomic and biogeographic implications of a phylogenetic analysis of the Campanulaceae based on three chloroplast genes. Taxon, 58(3), 715-734. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.583003

Weissmann, J. A., & Schaefer, H. (2015). Honeybees (Apis mellifera) collect latex of Azores bellflowers (Azorina vidalii, Campanulaceae). ARQUIPÉLAGO. Life and Marine Sciences, 32. https://repositorio.uac.pt/handle/10400.3/3906

Weissmann, J. A., & Schaefer, H. (2018). The importance of generalist pollinator complexes for endangered island endemic plants. Arquipélago-Life and Marine Sciences, 35, 23-40. https://repositorio.uac.pt/handle/10400.3/4861

Wikipedia. Azorina. Available at < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azorina >. Access on 29 April 2021.

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Friday Fellow: Dragon Tree

by Piter Kehoma Boll

When the seventh generation of pokémon was released, it introduced regional forms of previous pokémon, including an Alolan form of Exeggutor which was changed from the grass/psychic type of the traditional Exeggutor to a grass/dragon type. This led many people to become familiar with the genus Dracaena, a genus that is well-known among botanists and gardeners and includes many ornamental plants.

Alolan Exeggutor, a grass/dragon pokémon.

The name Dracaena comes from the greek word meaning dragoness, i.e., a female dragon and is given based on the type-species of the genus, Dracaena draco, or the dragon tree, which is today’s fellow.

Dragon tree in Tenerife, Canary Islands. Photo by Wikimedia user Losrealejos.es*

The genus Dracaena is closely related to the genus Asparagus and the dragon tree was intially named Asparagus draco by Linnaeus and later renamed Dracaena draco by himself based on a genus name created by the Italian naturalist Domenico Agostino Vandelli. This species is native from the African islands in the Atlantic (Canary Islands, Cape Verde and Madeira).

Closeup of a flower. Photo by Wikimedia user Philmarin.**

The dragon tree starts its life as a small unbranched stem like most ordinary species of Dracaena we see in gardens. Its growth is very slow and only after growing vertically for 10 to 15 years it will produce flowers for the first time. The flowers are white and lily-like and appear in a spike, later turning into reddish berries. After this first reprouctive cycle, the stem branches for the first time from a crown of terminal buds and then grows again for 10 to 15 years before branching again. Being a monocot, the dragon tree lacks growth rings but its age can be estimated by the number of branching points from the ground to the crown.

The fruits. Photo by Forest & Kim Starr.***

The association of this plant with dragons comes from ancient times. Not only Dracaena draco, but some other species of Dracaena as well, produce a red resin that is secreted when the leaves or the trunk are cut. A similar red resin is found in many other plants, including palm trees and crotons, and they were all collectively known as “dragon’s blood” and used for several purposes, such as dye or medicine. The ancient Romans collected dragon’s blood from the Island of Socotra, where a closely-related species, Dracaena cinnabari, the dragon’s blood tree, is found.

Plucked dead leaves showing the red color of the dragon’s blood. Photo by Wikimedia user Sharktopus.*

The dragon tree is the official tree of Tenerife, where the largest and possibly oldest specimen is also found, the so-called “Drago Milenario”. This specimen is about 21 m tall but, despite its name (the thousand-year-old dragon), it is not actually that old and its age is most likely about 300 years or so.

The Drago milenario in Tenerife, the largest dragon tree in the world. Photo by Andrey Tenerife.**

Despite being a relatively popular species that is grown as an ornamental plant, the dragon tree is classified as vulnerable in the IUCN’s red list. It’s wild populations are close to extinction and one reason for this is likely because some of its original seed dispersers went extinct. Only two bird species have been recently recognized as effective dispersers. Due to the dragon’s tree relatively large fruit, most bird species do not eat the whole fruit and only bite off pieces of the pulp, so that seeds are not carried to new locations.

Ripe fruits. Photo by Wikimedia user Nadiatalent.*

The Guanches, the aboriginal people of the Canary Islands, used to worship a large dragon tree in Tenerife. Alexander von Humboldt apparently saw this tree when visiting the island and it was later destroyed by a storm that hit Tenerife in 1868. The Guanches were wiped out by the Spanish invaders and now their sacred tree is facing the same fate.

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References:

Bañares A et al. (1998) Dracaena draco. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 1998: e.T30394A9535771. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.1998.RLTS.T30394A9535771.en. Access on 13 August 2020.

González-Castro A, Pérez-Pérez D, Romero J, Nogales M (2019) Unraveling the Seed Dispersal System of an Insular “Ghost” Dragon Tree (Dracaena draco) in the Wild. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7:39. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2019.00039

Wikipedia. Dracaena draco. Available at < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracaena_draco >. Access on 13 August 2020.

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* This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

** This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

*** This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Friday Fellow: Pineapple Sea Cucumber

by Piter Kehoma Boll

Seafood is often a highly regarded food all around the world and include all sorts of marine organisms that humans found out that are edible. In Southeast Asia, one of these delicacies is a sea cucumber, Thelenota ananas, known as pineapple sea cucumber, tripang or prickly redfish.

A nice pineapple sea cucumber in the Maldivas. Photo by Albert Kang.*

The pineapple sea cucumber is an echinoderm, a group which also includes seastars, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars and sea lilies. It is found in tropical and subtropical waters of the Indo-Pacific, occurring from the Red Sea southward along the east coast of Africa and eastward to Polynesia, being common in coral reefs, although in low densities.

Reaching up to 70 cm in length and 6 kg in weight, the pineapple sea cucumber is a relatively large sea cucumber. It has a reddish-orange and black color, usually brighter on the underside, and has many soft star-like projections (“teats”) all over the body.

A detail showing the star-shaped “teats”. Photo by Nick Hobgood.**

Like most sea cucumbers, the pineapple sea cucumber is a herbivore. As a larva it probably feeds on phytoplankton and, as an adult, on larger algae, including calcaerous green algae of the genus Halimeda. It grows slowly and has a long lifespan. In more subtropical areas, it reproduces in summer, from January to March, but in more tropical waters it is likely that it reproduces all year round. It can also involuntarily reproduce asexually if accidentally cut in half, with the anterior and posterior halves forming a new organism in a few weeks.

In the Northern Mariana Islands, with a human arm for comparison. Photo by John Starmer.*

As I said above, the pineapple sea cucumber is edible and is, in fact, a very healthy and promising food. As all sea cucumbers, it contains a fucoidan, a type of polysaccharide also found in brown algae and that has antioxidant and antiinflammatory properties. It is also rich in saponins, like other sea cucumbers and echinoderms, and these revealed to be good agents to reduce cholesterol levels and also have anticancer properties. More than that, the pineapple sea cucumber contains another compound, a glycosaminoglycan known as fucosylated chondroitin sulfate (FuCS-1), which revealed to have the ability to block HIV from entering cells and has, therefore, the potential to be explored for the development of new anti-HIV drugs, especially against some resistant variants.

A very red specimen in Malaysia. Photo by Tsu Soo Tan.*

Unfortunately, due to its slow development, the reproductive rate of the pineapple sea cucumber is unable to compensate its extraction from the ocean for human consumption. As a result, the natural populations have drastically decreased in the past decades, with a 60% reduction in New Caledonia and being almost extinct in some areas. As a result, it is listed as endangered in the IUCN’s red list. If we don’t start to respect this species by applying severe policies for harvesting it, we will end up losing a very precious fellow of our planet.

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References:

Conand C (1993) Reproductive biology of the holothurians from the major communities of the New Caledonian Lagoon. Marine Biology 116:439–450. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00350061

Conand C, Gamboa R, Purcell S (2013) Thelenota ananas. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013: e.T180481A1636021. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T180481A1636021.en. Access on 30 July 2020.

Han Q, Li K, Dong X, Luo Y, Zhu B (2018) Function of Thelenota ananas saponin desulfated holothurin A in modulating cholesterol metabolism. Scientific Reports 8:9506. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-27932-x

Huang N, Wu M-Y, Zheng C-B, Zhu L, Zhao J-H, Zheng Y-T (2013) The depolymerized fucosylated chondroitin sulfate from sea cucumber potently inhibits HIV replication via interfering with virus entry. Carbohydrate Research 380:64–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carres.2013.07.010

Reichenbach (1995) Potential for asexual propagation of several commercially important species of tropical sea cucumber (Echinodermata). Journal of the World Aquaculture Society 26(3):272–278. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-7345.1995.tb00255.x

Wikipedia. Thelenota ananas. Available at < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelenota_ananas >. Access on 30 July 2020.

Yu L, Xue C, Chang Y, Xu X, Ge L, Liu G, Wang Y (2014) Structure elucidation of fucoidan composed of a novel tetrafucose repeating unit from sea cucumber Thelenota ananas. Food Chemistry 146:113–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2013.09.033

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** This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Daytrippers’ chips are killing species in protected areas

by Piter Kehoma Boll

Leia em português

There’s nothing as threatening to nature as humans, as we all know. A lot of species have become endangered and even extinct due to human influence all around the world. As an attempt to protect whatever is left, we have been creating protected areas where species should be able to live their lives without the dangers of humanity.

However, in order to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the biodiversity, most protected areas accept human visitors. Although it does have some effect to improve the visitors’ view about nature and its importance, there are a lot of undesired side effects. Humans walking through a forest cause noise that disturbs the local fauna and the soil compaction caused by walking can lead to changes in vegetation growth and soil drainage.

But another human behavior that appears to have serious consequences on biodiversity conservation is our tendency to carry food with us, such as snacks, and eat it anywhere. People visiting a protected area may eat something on the way through the woods or stop for a picnic. Many species love food remains left by humans and will thrive with them.

Two Steller’s jays in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Photo by iNaturalist user kgerner.*

One species that benefits from human food is the Steller’s jay, Cyanocitta stelleri, a corvid that is common across the the west coast of North America. As a result, this species is not at all threatened at the moment and it tends even to follow humans because of the easy access to food. In the wild, this species is a generalist omnivore, feeding on seeds, fruits, invertebrates, eggs and small vertebrates, such as rodents and bird nestlings.

Another bird that can be found in the same areas as the Steller’s jay is the marbled murrelet Brachyramphus marmoratus, a small seabird. Different from most seabirds, the marbled murrelet does not nest in cliffs or burrows near the water but on branches of old-growth conifers. As a result, they may move up to 80 km inland to find a suitable place to nest. Different from the Steller’s jay, the marbled murrelet does not benefit from human snacks. On the contrary, they may be its ruin.

A young marbled murrelet found in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Photo by iNaturalist user basinbird.*

The marbled murrelet relies heavily on old forests to reproduce and the female lays only one egg per year, leading to a low reproductive rate. Due to the removal of old forests by humans, the marbled murrelet has lost a lot of its original habitat and is currently considered an endangered species.

One of the few remaining areas for this species to nest is located in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park in California. The park contains many options for camping, which means humans bringing food all the time. This attracts a lot of Steller’s jays, which feast on the crumbs and other remains, and reproduce explosively. When humans are not present, this increased population migrates toward new areas, sometimes following humans to the cities, or starts to feed on whatever is present in the park, and one of the most nutritious options are nestlings of the marbled murrelet.

With an already endagered population, the marbled murrelet is about to get extinct because our desire to walk through the woods is accidentally increasing the population of one of its main predators. Will we ever be able to have a good impact on this planet?

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Reference:

West EH, Brunk K, Peery MZ (2019) When protected areas produce source populations of overabundant species. Biological Conservation 238: 108220. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108220

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Friday Fellow: Tender Nori

by Piter Kehoma Boll

If you like Japanese food, you have eaten sushi for sure, and thus have ingested the famous alga from Japanese cuisine known as nori that is used to wrap the rice, right? Well, it does not necessarily mean that you have eaten the species I am introducing today and you soon will know why.

Dried nori sheets as used in Japanese cuisine. Photo by Yuichi Kosio.*

During most of the Japan history, the main nori species used as a food was the tender nori, which is scientifically known as Pyropia tenera (formerly known as Porphyra tenera) and known in Japan as 浅草海苔 (asakusa nori). This species is a red alga and is closely related to other edible species used in other parts of the world.

Cultivated tender nori. Extracted from http://godairikibune.blog83.fc2.com/blog-category-7.html

The life cycle of the tender nori includes two different generations as seen in all plants. One generation, the gametophyte, is composed by haploid cells, i.e., with only one copy of each chromosome. This gametophyte stage is the largest and the one commonly used as food. It produces both female and male gametes and uses the water current to guide the male gametes, which are unable to swim, to the female gametes. For a long time, this was the only life stage known for the nori. The gametophytes were harvested in the wild, where they grow on the available substrate, especially wood. Only during the 20th century it became clear that the sporophyte, the other life stage, is smaller and needs the shell of mollusks as a substrate to grow. In fact, the sporophyte was already known, but was mistaken for a different organism classified in a genus named Conchocelis. Thus, the sporophyte is still commonly known as tie Conchocelis stage.

After the complete life-cycle of these algae was known, it did not take too long for people to develop cultivation methods that greatly increased the production of nori. Two nori strains soon became the main cultivars in Japan from around the beginning of the 1960s: Pyropia tenera var. tamatsuensis and Pyropia yezoensis f. narawaensis. The latter, as you can see, belongs to a different species of nori, the Ezo nori, known in Japan as 荒び海苔 (susabi nori).

Although the tender nori was considered of better quality and better taste, it was not as tolerant to the strong waves and winds as the Ezo nori. As a result, the Ezo nori became the favorite cultivar and spread quickly, so that this is the main species used nowadays in the Japanese cuisine. This increased cultivation of the Ezo nori displaced the original tender nori to the point that the tender nori is currently a very rare species, so rare that it is considered an endangered species by the Japanese government since 1997.

The distinction between species of Pyropia in wild populations is usually difficult because there is little morphological variation between them. Recent molecular studies from nori growing across Japan showed that the tender nori is not as rare as previously thought, although it does not makes it imune to extinction. Since the tender nori is considered softer and more tasty than the Ezo nori, there have been some attempts to increase the commercial interest on it, which could prevent it from becoming extinct in the near future.

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References:

Hwang MS, Kim S-O, Ha D-S, Lee JU, Lee S-R (2013) Complete sequence and genetic features of the mitochondrial genome of Pyropia tenera (Rhodophyta). Plant Biotechnology Reports 7(4): 435–443. doi: 10.1007/s11816-013-0281-4

Iwasaki H (1961) The life-cycle of Porphyra tenera in Vitro. Biological Bulletin 121(1): 173–187. doi: 10.2307/1539469

Niwa K, Iida S, Kato A, Kawai H, Kikuchi N, Kobiyama A, Aruga Y (2009) Genetic diversity and ingrogression in two cultivated species (Porphyra yezoensis and Porphyra tenera) and closely related wild species of Porphyra (Bangiales, Rhodophyta). Journal of Phycology 45(2): 493–502. doi: 10.1111/j.1529-8817.2009.00661.x

Niwa K, Kikuchi N, Aruga Y (2005) Morphological and molecular analysis of the endangered species Porphyra tenera (Bangiales, Rhodophyta). Journal of Phycology 41(2): 294–304. doi: 10.1111/j.1529-8817.2005.04039.x

ウィキペディア (Wikipedia in Japanese)。アサクサオリ。Available at <
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%82%B5%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B5%E3%83%8E%E3%83%AA >. Access on 25 March 2019.

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* This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

Friday Fellow: Imperial Fritillary

by Piter Kehoma Boll

Let’s bring a high dose of beauty into today’s Friday Fellow with a wonderful species that may sometimes be found in your garden.

Imperial fritillary growing in its natural environment in Kurdistan. Photo by Wikipedia user A2raya07.*

Fritillaria imperialis, the imperial fritillary or crown imperial, is native from Asian highlands between Turkey and the Himalayas but is cultivated worldwide, having a series of artificially selected cultivars. The plant reaches a height of about 1 m and has a series of lance-shaped leaves along its stem, similarly to what is found in other species of the lily family, Liliaceae, to which it belongs. The flowers appear in a whorl close to the top of the stem and face downwards. A crown of small leaves tops the flowers, hence its name imperialis. The bell-shaped flowers are usually orange in the wild but, in cultivars, they vary between red and yellow.

A cultivar named ‘Rubra Maxima’. Photo by Hendry Heatly.**

The imperial fritillary has been used in traditional medicine for centuries by people living around its native range. Recent studies revealed that the plant contains a series of alkaloids, mostly anticholinergic steroidal alkaloids, which have the potential to be used for the development of new medicines to treat several conditions.

Despite its popularity as an ornamental plant, wild populations of the imperial fritillary are endangered in many countries in which it occurs, especially due to habitat loss. In order to aid in the preservation and restoration of wild populations, some laboratory techniques have been developed to generate clones that could help increase population size in the wild.

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References:

Akhtar MN, Rahman A, Choudhary MI, Sener B, Erdogan I, Tsuda Y (2003) New class of steroidal alkaloids from Fritillaria imperialis. Phytochemistry 63: 115–122. doi: 10.1016/S0031-9422(02)00569-1

Gilani AH, Shaheen F, Christopoulos A, Mitchelson F (1997) Interaction of ebeinone, an alkaloid from Fritillaria imperialis, at two muscarinic acetylcholine receptor subtypes. Life Sciences 60 (8): 535–544. doi:
10.1016/S0024-3205(96)00691-1

Kiani M, Mohammadi S, Babaei A, Sefidkon F, Naghavi MR, Ranjbar M, Razavi SA, Saeidi K, Jafari H, Asgardi D, Potter D (2017) Iran supports a great share of biodiversity and floristic endemism for Fritillaria spp. (Liliaceae): A review. Plant Diversity 39(5): 245–262. doi: 10.1016/j.pld.2017.09.002

Mohammadi-Dehcheshmeh M, Khalighi A, Naderi R, Sardari M, Ebrahimie E (2008) Petal: a reliable explant for direct bulblet regeneration of endangered wild populations of Fritillaria imperialis L. Acta Physiologiae Plantarum 30(3): 395–399. doi: 10.1007/s11738-007-0126-2

Wikipedia. Fritillaria imperialis. Available at < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritillaria_imperialis >. Access on 11 February 2019.

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* This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

** This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.

Think of the worms, not only of the whales, or: how a planarian saved an ecosystem

by Piter Kehoma Boll

Leia em português

Due to the massive interference of human practices on natural habitats during the past decades, ecosystem restoration has become a trend in order to try to save what is still savable. Unfortunately, the effort of ecologists and other experts alone is not enough to achieve that, and a larger section of the society needs to be engaged in helping reach the goals. In order to do so, it is common to appeal to the beauty and cuteness of endangered species, which usually include mammals and birds, since they are more likely to caught the public’s attention. However, most of the endangered species are invertebrates or other less charismatic beings, and they are often ignored even by biologists.

Hopefully, things are able to change on this matter. Recently the first ecosystem restoration directed to save an invertebrate was successful, and I am here to tell you about it.

The invertebrate in question is a freshwater planarian named Dendrocoelum italicum. It was discovered in 1936 in a cave in northern Italy named Bus del Budrio. Inside the cave, there was a small freshwater pool, about 5 × 5 m or little more, caused by a waterfall from a small stream coming through a narrow elevated corridor. The species is apparently found only in this pool and nowhere else.

There are no available photos of Dendrocoelum italicum, but it should look similar to the widespread Dendrocoelum lacteum seen here, but D. italicum lacks the eyes. Photo by Eduard Solà.*

During the 1980’s, a pipe was installed to divert the water from the stream to a nearby farm. The waterfall ceased to exist and the pool dried up permanently. The planarian survived in a very narrow rivulet that formed inside the cave and some small isolated ponds resulting from water drips. This critical condition of the population was discovered in 2016 by a research group from the University of Milan. They informed the administrators of the cave about the situation and, together, the team started to raise awareness about the situation of the cave among the citizens that benefitted from the reservoir formed by the diverted water, which made the farmer responsible for diverting the water agree to remove the artificial structure.

Image of the inside of the cave. Photo by Livio Mola. Extracted from https://www.naturamediterraneo.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=57050

The removal happened on December 3, 2016 after all the planarians occurring in the rivulet were collected and stored in plastic tanks inside the cave. When the waterfall was restored, it quickly started to fill the old pool again and, one day later, the planarians were released into the pool.

The ecosystem was monitored during the following two years until January 2018. The number of planarians varied greatly during the survey, but was not significantly larger after the restoration from what it was before. However, there was a significant increase in the population of a bivalve species, Pisidium personatum, and a small increase in the population of a crustaceon of the genus Niphargus. Additionally, annelids of the family Haplotaxidae, that were absent in the cave, appeared after restoration. Thus, it is clear that the ecosystem benefited from the reappearance of the pool.

Thanks to the efforts of those researchers, Dendrocoelum italicum now has a better chance to avoid extinction. However, this is not an isolated case. There are many cave-dwelling planarian species all around the world living under similar conditions, usually restricted to a single small pool inside a single cave. Many of those occur, or occurred, as D. italicum, in Italy, but the help came to late for some of them. For example, a closely related species, Dendrocoelum beauchampi, was discovered in 1950 in a cave in northwestern Italy named Grotta di Cavassola, but a recent survey found no planarians inside the cave, which seems to have suffered great alteration due to human activities. Similarly, the species Dendrocoelum benazzi was discovered in 1971 in central Italy in a cave named Grotta di Stiffe, but nowadays, with the cave open to turists and its water polluted, the planarians disappeared. It is very likely that both D. beauchampi and D. benazzi are now extinct. The situation is the same for other Italian species.

Out of Italy, a recently described species living a similar small environment is the Brazilian cave planarian Girardia multidiverticulata, which is known to occur in a small pool about 10 m² inside a cave named Buraco do Bicho in the Cerrado Biome.

Girardia multidiverticulata is a planarian species restricted a small 10 m² pool inside a cave in Brazilian cerrado. Credits to Souza et al. (2015)**

The case of Dendrocoelum italicum shows us it is possible to save small endemic populations of threatened habitats, but we need the help of the public. Let’s hope other ecosystems have a similar happy ending.

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References:

Manenti R, Barzaghi B, Lana E, Stocchino GA, Manconi R, & Lunghi E 2018. The stenoendemic cave-dwelling planarians (Platyhelminthes, Tricladida) of the Italian Alps and Apennines: conservation issues. Journal for Nature Conservation.

Manenti R, Barzaghi B, Tonni G, Ficetola GF, & Melotto A 2018. Even worms matter: cave habitat restoration for a planarian species increased environmental suitability but not abundance. Oryx: 1–6.

Souza ST, Morais ALN, Cordeiro LM, & Leal-Zanchet AM 2015. The first troglobitic species of freshwater flatworm of the suborder Continenticola (Platyhelminthes) from South America. Zookeys 470: 1–16.

Vialli PM 1937. Una nuova specie di Dendrocoelum delle Grotte Bresciane. Bollettino di zoologia 8: 179–187.

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* This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

** This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Friday Fellow: Crystalline crestfoot

by Piter Kehoma Boll

Even in the smallest pools or ponds of freshwater lost in a field, the diversity of lifeforms is amazing. Sadly, these environments are one of the most damaged of all ecosystems on earth and we probably have led many tiny species to extinction. Today’s fellow, however, is still alive, and its name is Lophopus crystallinus, or as I decided to call it, the crystalline crestfoot.

A colony of Lophopus crystallinus. Photo by Natural History Museum, London.*

The crystalline crestfoot is member of the phylum Bryozoa, sometimes called moss animals. In fact, it was the first bryozoan to be described. As other bryozoans, the crystalline crestfoot lives as a colony of individuals attached to substracts in the lakes and ponds where they exist, which includes Europe and North America. The individuals are not fully independent and have specialized functions within the colony, thus acting as a single superorganism. As a general rule, bryozoans, including the crystalline crestfoot, are filter feeders, extracting particles and microalgae from water.

Despite being considerable tolerant to eutrophication (increase of  organic matter in water) and heavy metal pollution, the crystalline crestfoot is yet threatened by other forms of human impact, such as climate change and certainly by the destruction of its habitat. Once an abundant species, the crystalline crestfoot is now rare and declining. It is currently regarded as a threatened species in the United Kingdom and is the only bryozoan to have a Species Action Plan. Let’s hope we can find a way to avoid it to be wiped out from this world.

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References:

Elia, A., Galarini, R., Martin Dörr, A., & Taticchi, M. (2007). Heavy metal contamination and antioxidant response of a freshwater bryozoan (Lophopus crystallinus Pall., Phylactolaemata). Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, 66 (2), 188-194 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2005.12.004

Hill, S., Sayer, C., Hammond, P., Rimmer, V., Davidson, T., Hoare, D., Burgess, A., & Okamura, B. (2007). Are rare species rare or just overlooked? Assessing the distribution of the freshwater bryozoan, Lophopus crystallinus. Biological Conservation, 135 (2), 223-234 DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2006.10.023

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Friday Fellow: Paraná pine

by Piter Kehoma Boll

As the first conifer Friday Fellow, I decided to choose one of my beloved ones, the Paraná pine, Araucaria angustifolia, also known as Brazilian pine or candelabra tree.

The Paraná pine can reach up to 50 m in height, although most trees are smaller than that. They have a very particular shape and are easily distinguished from the surrounding forest where they occur, the so-called Mixed Ombrophilous Forest or Araucaria Moist Forest, in southern Brazil. The trees have a cylindrical trunk with a dark and thin bark that detaches in large and flexible pieces, being gray on the outer surface and reddish on the inner one. The crown changes its appearance during the development, being conical in young trees and with a candelabrum-like shape in mature specimens. Mature trees usually stand with their crowns above the forest canopy, which gives the Araucaria moist forest its particular look. The leaves grow in a spiral pattern around the stem and are very hard with a sharp point that can easily pierce through the human skin.

A group of Paraná pines in Campos de Jordão, Brazil, close to the northernmost distribution of the species. Photo by Vinícius Ribeiro.*

The species current distribution is almost restricted to Brazil, from northern Rio Grande do Sul to southern São Paulo, with some small populations occurring in neighboring areas of Argentina and Paraguay. Once an abundant species, its population has been drastically reduced due to the heavy logging until the middle of the 20th century and the exploitation for the use of its seeds, called pinhão in Portuguese. As a result, it is currently considered as Critically Endangered by IUCN.

An adult tree in the municipality of Colombo, Paraná, Brazil. Photo by Mauro Guanandi.*

The paraná pine is a dioecious species, i.e., males and females are separate plants. As most conifers, it is pollinated by the wind. The large cones, which take two years to become ripe, contain a number of large and edible seeds used as food by many animals, as well as by humans. Pinhões cooked in salty water is a typical dish in southern Brazil during winter. One of the main seed dispersers of the Paraná pine is the azure jay, Cyanocorax caeruleus, which buries the seeds for future use.

A cone and lose seeds of Araucaria angustifolia in a market. Photo by Marcelo Träsel.**

As most (if not all) conifers, the Paraná pine forms mutualist associations with fungi, such as the glomeromycete Glomus clarum. Thus, in order to preserve this amazing tree, it is also necessary to guarantee the preservation of all its partner species, such as mycorrhizal fungi and seed dispersers.

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References:

Angeli, A. (2003). Araucaria angustifolia (Araucaria). Departamento de Ciências Florestais – ESALQ/USP. Available at: <http://www.ipef.br/identificacao/araucaria.angustifolia.asp&gt;. Access on January 26, 2017.

IUCN (2016). Araucaria angustifolia The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species DOI: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T32975A2829141.en

Soares, T. S. (2004). Araucária – o pinheiro brasileiro. Revista Científica Eletrônica de Engenharia Florestal, 2 (3).

SOUZA, A. (2007). Ecological interpretation of multiple population size structures in trees: The case of Araucaria angustifolia in South America Austral Ecology, 32 (5), 524-533 DOI: 10.1111/j.1442-9993.2007.01724.x

Zandavalli, R., Dillenburg, L., & de Souza, P. (2004). Growth responses of Araucaria angustifolia (Araucariaceae) to inoculation with the mycorrhizal fungus Glomus clarum. Applied Soil Ecology, 25 (3), 245-255 DOI: 10.1016/j.apsoil.2003.09.009

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

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Friday Fellow: Samambaiaçu

by Piter Kehoma Boll

It’s more than time to bring a fern as a Friday Fellow, and I decided to start with one of my favorites, the Neotropical tree fern Dicksonia sellowiana, known in Brazil as Samambaiaçu or Xaxim.

A samambaiaçu in a forest in southern Brazil. Photo by Wikimedia user DeadWood II.*

The samambaiaçu occurs from southern Mexico to Uruguay and is usually found in moist forests, being a remarkable species of moist forests in southern Brazil, especially in Araucaria moist forests. It may reach several meters in height and the fronds (leaves) reach up to 2,4 m in length.

During most of the 20th century, the fibrous stems of the samambaiaçu (usually called “xaxim”) were extensively used for manufacturing flower pots or plates that served as a substrate for cultivating orchids and other epiphytic plants. As a result of this exploitation, as well as the destruction of its native habitat, the samambaiaçu is currently included in the Brazilian Red List of endangered species.

The trade of xaxim is currently forbidden by law in Brazil, so if  you ever find someone selling it somewhere, please, communicate the authorities!

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References:

Schmitt, J., Schneider, P., & Windisch, P. (2009). Crescimento do cáudice e fenologia de Dicksonia sellowiana Hook. (Dicksoniaceae) no sul do Brasil Acta Botanica Brasilica, 23 (1), 283-291 DOI: 10.1590/S0102-33062009000100030

Brazil. Law Nº 9.605/98. Available at: <http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/L9605.htm >.

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