Taxonomy

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to inform you of the preparation of a Special Issue of the journal Taxonomy titled “Diversity, Distribution and Zoogeography of Coleoptera”.

A good taxonomic knowledge is the starting point for any study by conservationists, ecologists, biodiversity scientists, and many others, who rely heavily on taxonomic information to manage, conserve, use, and share our biodiversity. Unfortunately, even though roughly 400,000 taxa of Coleoptera—the largest of all orders—have been described, a much higher number of species remain unknown, particularly from coenoses that have the highest ecological importance and are highly threatened, such as tropical forests. The worldwide shortage of this essential taxonomic information, the gaps in our taxonomic knowledge, and the paucity of trained taxonomists has come to be known as the taxonomic impediment. Any effort that helps to increase the knowledge of Coleoptera is therefore highly welcome.

A very important field of investigation is biogeography, the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Modern biogeographic research combines information and ideas from many fields, from the physiological and ecological constraints on organismal dispersal to geological and climatological phenomena operating at global spatial scales and evolutionary time frames, and its results are even more important now because they can help in understanding the capability of organisms to respond to global warming.

It is evident that the biogeographical analysis of any animal or plant group is inescapable from a proper systematic baseline, with particular regard to a reliable knowledge of phylogenetic relationships. The development of the cladistic approach to phylogenetic problems, whether based on a traditional morphological approach or in combination with molecular techniques, has made it possible to eliminate many of the uncertainties associated with the personal conception of the specialist. In this, we have been aided by the increasing development of computer systems for cladistic analysis and their availability online. There are currently computer programs that can be easily implemented to analyze the distribution of various taxa.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to provide a space to accommodate important contributions to the knowledge of Coleoptera biodiversity, and to provide information on the current state of zoogeographical information about the order of insects with the largest number of species in the world.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Diversity.

Prof. Dr. Massimo Meregalli
Dr. Pier Mauro Giachino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Taxonomy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 5540 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Taxonomy, Distribution and Habitat of the Giant Trechus Beetles Endemic to Mt. Choke, Ethiopia (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

by Joachim Schmidt and Yeshitla Merene

Taxonomy 2024, 4(1), 27-50; https://doi.org/10.3390/taxonomy4010003 - 7 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1036

Abstract

The Holarctic ground beetle genus Trechus Clairville, 1806, is highly diverse in the Ethiopian highlands, both in terms of species numbers and morphology. Particularly noteworthy are the extraordinarily large species of the subgenus Abyssinotus Quéinnec and Ollivier, 2021, with a body length up to 8.5 mm, that occur on Mt. Choke in northern Ethiopia. Recent, intensive field work on Mt. Choke resulted in a significantly large number of specimens that are the basis for our taxonomic revision of the species related to the giant species, T. dimorphicus Pawłowski, 2001 and T. gigas Pawłowski, 2001. We describe three new species and one new subspecies and discuss a likely interspecific hybrid that combines morphological character states of representatives of the dimorphicus and gigas subgroups of Abyssinotus. An iconography of males and females as well as photographs of the aedeagi of all the considered species are presented. The distributions of the species are detailed and knowledge of the species-specific habitat preferences is summarized. Based on the distributions and habitat specificity, a threat assessment based on the current land use pattern at Mt. Choke is provided. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Diversity, Distribution and Zoogeography of Coleoptera)

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13 pages, 4372 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Description of a Highly Modified Endemic Ground Beetle (Coleoptera, Carabidae) from the Oceanic Island of Malpelo, Colombia

by Pierre Moret, Anderson Arenas-Clavijo and Mateo López-Victoria

Taxonomy 2023, 3(4), 496-508; https://doi.org/10.3390/taxonomy3040028 - 22 Nov 2023

Viewed by 914

Abstract

The oceanic island of Malpelo, 380 km west of the Colombian mainland, stands out from other islands of the Tropical Eastern Pacific by its harsh environment and depauperate flora and fauna, thus imposing strong selective pressure on the small number of invertebrates that inhabit it. The endemic taxon described here, Dyscolus (Cacothrix) malpelensis, n. subgen., n. sp. (Carabidae, Platynini), is a remarkable example of adaptation to this unique ecosystem. The modifications of its body shape, including a tight coaptation of elytra and pronotum, might be a response to strong environmental constraints, from predation by lizards and land crabs to the absence of deep soil that forces the beetle to seek shelter in caves and rock crevices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Diversity, Distribution and Zoogeography of Coleoptera)

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