Soil Chemical Analysis

A series of cladistic analyses assesses the status and membership of the taxon Polychaeta. The available literature, and a review by Fauchald & Rouse (1997), on the 80 accepted families of the Polychaeta are used to develop characters and data matrices. As well as the polychaete families, non-polychaete taxa, such as the Echiura, Euarthropoda, Onychophora, Pogonophora (as Frenulata and Vestimentifera), Clitellata, Aeolosomatidae and Potamodrilidae, are included in the analyses. All trees are rooted using the Sipuncula as outgroup. Characters are based on features (where present) such as the prostomium, peristomium, antennae, palps, nuchal organs, parapodia, stomodaeum, segmental organ structure and distribution, circulation and chaetae. A number of analyses are performed, involving different ways of coding and weighting the characters, as well as the number of taxa included. Transformation series are provided for several of these analyses. One of the analyses is chosen to provide a new classification. The Annelida is found to be monophyletic, though weakly supported, and comprises the Clitellata and Polychaeta. The Polychaeta is monophyletic only if taxa such as the Pogonophora, Aeolosomatidae and Potamodrilidae are included and is also weakly supported. The Pogonophora is reduced to the rank of family within the Polychaeta and reverts to the name Siboglinidae Caullery, 1914. The new classification does not use Linnaean categories, and the Polychaeta comprises two clades, the Scolecida and Palpata. The Palpata has the clades Aciculata and Canalipalpata. The Aciculata contains the Phyllodocida and Eunicida. The Canalipalpata has three clades; the Sabellida (including the Siboglinidae) Spionida and Terebellida. The position of a number of families requires further investigation.

Cladistics and polychaetes

Parasitism is one of the most successful modes of life displayed by living organisms, as measured by how often it evolved and how many parasitic species are presently in existence. Studying the diversity of parasites is particularly relevant because sympatric diversification may be important in some parasite taxa, and because of the opportunity for independent tests of evolutionary hypotheses in the many separate lineages in which parasitism evolved. Our incomplete knowledge of existing parasite species--the result of a range of phenomena that includes inadequate sampling effort or the lumping of different cryptic species under one name--is not always a major obstacle for the study of parasite diversity. Patterns in the diversity of parasites may be associated with either host or parasite characteristics. The distribution of parasite diversity among host taxa does not simply reflect the species diversity of the host taxa themselves; life history and ecological traits of hosts appear to play important roles. These may determine the likelihood that hosts are colonized by parasite species over evolutionary time. It is not yet clear whether some host traits also favor intrahost speciation and diversification of parasites, and the formation of new parasite species. Certain features of parasites may also be associated with speciation and diversification. Only parasite body size has received much attention; the patterns observed are not greatly different from those of free-living species, with small-bodied parasite taxa being more speciose than related large-bodied taxa. Epidemiological parameters such as the basic reproductive rate of parasites, or R0, can also generate predictions regarding the distribution or evolution of parasite diversity. For instance, parasite taxa characterized by high R0 values may be more speciose than related taxa with lower values of R0; such predictions remain untested. Large-scale biogeographical patterns of diversity have only been well studied for metazoan parasites of marine fish; for these parasites, latitudinal patterns can be explained by effects of temperature on speciation rates and epidemiological variables, though other causes are possible. The emphasis for future research must shift from pattern description to the elucidation of the processes responsible for the structure and diversity of parasite faunas. A better integration of ecological and historical (or phylogenetic) approaches to the study of parasite diversity should make this objective possible.

The diversity of parasites.

The assumption that species are most abundant in the center of their range and decline in abundance toward the range edges has a long history in the ecological literature. This assumption has driven basic and applied ecological and evolutionary hypotheses about the causes of species range limits and their responses to climate change. Here, we review recent studies that are taking biogeographical ecology beyond previously held assumptions by observing populations in the field across large parts of the species range. When these studies combine data on abundance, demographics, organismal physiology, genetics and physical factors, they provide a promising approach for teasing out ecological and evolutionary mechanisms of the patterns and processes underlying species ranges.

Moving beyond assumptions to understand abundance distributions across the ranges of species

By facilitating plant reproduction, pollinators perform a crucial ecological function that supports the majority of the world's plant diversity, and associated organisms, and a significant fraction of global agriculture Thus, pollinators are simultaneously vital to supporting both natural ecosystems and human food security, which is a unique position for such a diverse group of organisms The past two decades have seen unprecedented interest in pollinators and pollination ecology, stimulated in part by concerns about the decline of pollinator abundance and diversity in some parts of the world This review synthesizes what is currently understood about the taxonomic diversity of organisms that are known to act as pollinators; their distribution in both deep time and present space; the importance of their diversity for ecological function (including agro-ecology); changes to diversity and abundance over more recent timescales, including introduction of non-native species; and a discussion of arguments for 

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Pollinator Diversity: Distribution, Ecological Function, and Conservation

Effects of industrial and urban pollution on the benthic macrofauna in the Bay of Muggia (industrial port of Trieste, Italy)

Environmental evaluation and development problems of the Mexican Coastal Zone

Poliquetos (Annelida: Polychaeta) de México y América tropical

Pollen transport by water-flow (hydrophily) is a typical, and almost exclusive, adaptation of plants to life in the marine environment. It is thought that, unlike terrestrial environments, animals are not involved in pollination in the sea. The male flowers of the tropical marine angiosperm Thalassia testudinum open-up and release pollen in mucilage at night when invertebrate fauna is active. Here we present experimental evidence that, in the absence of water-flow, these invertebrates visit the flowers, carry and transfer mucilage mass with embedded pollen from the male flowers to the stigmas of the female flowers. Pollen tubes are formed on the stigmas, indicating that pollination is successful. Thus, T. testudinum has mixed abiotic-biotic pollination. We propose a zoobenthophilous pollination syndrome (pollen transfer in the benthic zone by invertebrate animals) which shares many characteristics with hydrophily, but flowers are expected to open-up during the night.

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Experimental evidence of pollination in marine flowers by invertebrate fauna.

Bcnihic samples taken in rool-mals of Rhizophora mangleconlain four species of orbiniid polychacles including Naineris setosa, and three new taxa, Protoaricia pigmentata, new species, Pettihonella inultiuncinata, new ge- nus and new species and Pararicia belizensis, new genus and new species. Recognition of the new genera lead to a preliminary phylogenetic analysis of the genera of the subfamily Protoariciinae. brief characterizations of all genera in the subfamily and the development of a key to genera of the Protoariciinae from world-wide areas. The mangrove fauna of Twin Cays, Be- lize, has been under study for several years by a team of scientists under the direction

Vivianne Solís-Weiss

Papers

Effects of industrial and urban pollution on the benthic macrofauna in the Bay of Muggia (industrial port of Trieste, Italy)

Environmental evaluation and development problems of the Mexican Coastal Zone

Poliquetos (Annelida: Polychaeta) de México y América tropical

Experimental evidence of pollination in marine flowers by invertebrate fauna.

Orbiniidae (annelida: polychaeta) from mangrove root-mats in belize, with a revision of protoariciin genera