Abstract: In Neotropical rainforest canopies, phytotelmata (“plant-held waters”) shelter diverse aquatic macroinvertebrate communities, including vectors of animal diseases. Studying these communities is difficult because phytotelmata are widely dispersed, hard to find from the ground and often inaccessible. We propose here a method for placing in tree crowns “artificial phytotelmata” whose size and shape can be tailored to different research targets. The efficacy of this method was shown while comparing the patterns of community diversity of three forest formations. We noted a difference between a riparian forest and a rainforest, whereas trees alongside a dirt road cutting through that rainforest corresponded to a subset of the latter. Because rarefied species richness was significantly lower when the phytotelmata were left for three weeks rather than for six or nine weeks, we recommend leaving the phytotelmata for twelve weeks to permit predators and phoretic species to fully establish themselves.

Abstract: Vegetation phenology is the study of the timing of seasonal events that are considered to be the result of adaptive responses to climate variations on short and long time scales. In the field of remote sensing of vegetation phenology, phenological metrics are derived from time series of optical data. For that purpose, considerable effort has been specifically focused on developing noise reduction and cloud-contaminated data removal techniques to improve the quality of remotely-sensed time series. Comparative studies between time series composed of satellite data acquired under clear and cloudy conditions and from radiometric data obtained with high accuracy from ground-based measurements constitute a direct and effective way to assess the operational use and limitations of remote sensing for predicting the main plant phenological events. In the present paper, we sought to explicitly evaluate the potential use of MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) remote sensing data for monitoring the seasonal dynamics of different types of vegetation cover that are representative of the major terrestrial biomes, including temperate deciduous forests, evergreen forests, African savannah, and crops. After cloud screening and filtering, we compared the temporal patterns and phenological metrics derived from in situ NDVI time series and from MODIS daily and 16-composite products. We also evaluated the effects of residual noise and the influence of data gaps in MODIS NDVI time series on the identification of the most relevant metrics for vegetation phenology monitoring. The results show that the inflexion points of a model fitted to a MODIS NDVI time series allow accurate estimates of the onset of greenness in the spring and the onset of yellowing in the autumn in deciduous forests (RMSE ≤ one week). Phenological metrics identical to those provided with the MODIS Global Vegetation Phenology product (MDC12Q2) are less robust to data gaps, and they can be subject to large biases of approximately two weeks or more during the autumn phenological transitions. In the evergreen forests, in situ NDVI time series describe the phenology with high fidelity despite small temporal changes in the canopy foliage. However, MODIS is unable to provide consistent phenological patterns. In crops and savannah, MODIS NDVI time series reproduce the general temporal patterns of phenology, but significant discrepancies appear between MODIS and ground-based NDVI time series during very localized periods of time depending on the weather conditions and spatial heterogeneity within the MODIS pixel. In the rainforest, the temporal pattern exhibited by a MODIS 16-day composite NDVI time series is more likely due to a pattern of noise in the NDVI data structure according to both rainy and dry seasons rather than to phenological changes. More investigations are needed, but in all cases, this result leads us to conclude that MODIS time series in tropical rainforests should be interpreted with great caution. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Abstract: For many kinds of ecological, evolutionary and developmental study, it is important to be able to describe the life-history of the individuals of a particular species/population. In the case of myriapods and other arthropods, this involves separating the different life-history stages (or stadia or instars) that are separated by moults. However, it has recently been pointed out that in the earliest post-embryonic stages the cuticle is still quite flexible; this means that visible external developmental changes can occur between moults as well as during them. Here, we provide evidence for such inter-moult changes in the coastal geophilomorph centipede Strigamia maritima. The character states studied enable finer-scale resolution of early post-embryonic forms than was hitherto possible. Specifically, we describe five transitional forms during a period in which just two (Peripatoid and Foetus) have traditionally been recognized

Abstract: Epiphytic plants in general and bromeliads in particular live in a water and nutrient-stressed environment often limited in nitrogen. Thus, these plants have developed different ways to survive in such an environment. We focused on Aechmea mertensii (Bromeliaceae), which is both a tank-bromeliad and an ant-garden (AG) epiphyte initiated by either the ants Camponotus femoratus or Pachycondyla goeldii. By combining a study of plant morphology and physiology associated with aquatic insect biology, we demonstrate that the ant species influences the leaf structure of the bromeliad, the structure of the aquatic community in its tank, and nutrient assimilation by the leaves. Based on nitrogen and nitrogen stable isotope measurements of the A. mertensii leaves, the leaf litter inside of the tank and the root-embedded carton nest, we discuss the potential sources of available nitrogen for the plant based on the ant partner. We demonstrate the existence of a complex ant-plant interaction that subsequently affects the biodiversity of a broader range of organisms that are themselves likely to influence nutrient assimilation by the A. mertensii leaves in a kind of plant-invertebrate-plant feedback loop.

Abstract: Because of their ecological characteristics, slow growth rates and the presence of contaminants, Chaetothyriales fungi associated with structures built by tropical plant-ants can be difficult to isolate with standard procedures. Here, we describe an easy-to-use protocol for obtaining pure cultures by using cotton as a first substrate. We have further found by means of fluorescent stains that nuclei concentrate either in young hyphae or in the tips of the hyphae. © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.