Changing wild bee species distributions and pollination service shiftsA MSc graduate student position is available in my research group in the Department of Integrative Biology at the College of Biological Sciences - University of Guelph. Research in our group focusses on biodiversity genomics and the development of metabarcoding and metagenomic approaches for biodiversity research. We seek not only information on how communities are composed but also how its members are interconnected and interdependent. In addition to simply counting…

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A reminder that this course will start in a little over a month. The deadline for Early bird registration is January 31st to receive a discount. I have updated course content to include the newest HTS technology and methods such as metagenomics and transcriptomics. Throughout the course, we will explore:High throughput sequencingMetabarcoding/MetagenomicsMetabarcoding analyticsRecent applicationsThe course consists of a series of online lectures, research exercises, and group discussions where you have a chance to review the state of current technology,…

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I will be teaching our Metabarcoding course again coming March (March 01, 2021 to March 28, 2021).This course will provide an overview of the state of current technology and the various sequencing platforms used. The course consists of a series of online lectures and research exercises introducing different aspects of metabarcoding and metagenomics. We will also touch on the suite of bioinformatics tools available for sequence analysis and data interpretation. The course goes over 4…

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 WoRMS needs YOU!  WoRMS is a highly collaborative effort of over 500 involved experts, but we need all users – taxonomists, ecologists and non-scientists – to help us to keep WoRMS up-to-date and correct. If you find an error or an omission, please get in touch with us directly. Direct contact can fix errors a lot faster and more efficient than the WoRMS Team having to learn about these through peer-reviewed publications. The World Register of Marine…

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Stalk-eyed flies have eyestalks on which their eyes are mounted. These projections stick out from the sides of the head. Both males and females have eyestalks, but hey are much longer in males. Species are growing up to a cm in length and are known to feed on both decaying plants and animals.Todays new species was found around Kandy, a major city in Sri Lanka. It is considered the sister species of Teleopsis ferruginea, hence the name…

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Lucifuga is a genus of cusk-eels that give birth to young that developed within their mothers body.  Most of the species are native to caves and sinkholes in Cuba and the Bahamas. There is one exception, a species that was found in deep waters off the Galapagos Islands.The new species was found in an isolated karst patch of marine caves in Eastern Cuba. It was named after the village of Gibara, where the three caves inhabited…

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Carpenter bees got their name from their nesting behavior. Most of them burrow into hard plant material such as dead wood or bamboo and lay their eggs into the chamber. These bees are important pollinators for open-faced or shallow flowers. In fact for some species they are the only pollinators, e.g. for maypop (Passiflora incarnata) and Orphium. No other insect visits those.Todays two new species were found in the Risaralda and the Valle del Cauca Departments…

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You might have seen this group of fishes in pictures and videos from coral reefs and sometimes in a reef aquarium although this would be a rather rare sight. They are called stripey for obvious reasons and are also known as footballer or convict fish. This species is re-described as the taxonomy of the genus Microcanthus has been debated for a long time. The original description is from 1931 and the name was chosen to honour…

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A couple of months ago I posted about Litter frogs (Family Megophryidae) which live in South East Asia. They are mostly famous for their camouflage which makes many of them look like dead leaves. A widely known species is the long nosed horned frog. There is another new species from China this time found in the Chishui National Nature Reserve, Guizhou province. The species name refers to the location this species was found.For the experts: A new…

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The grass ferns (Schizaeaceae) are a family of ferns mainly found in the tropics. Most of them are rather small plants and the new species is a so-called epiphyte which means it grows on the trunk of a tree fern. It was found on Mindanao Island, Philippines. The species name refers to is small size even compared to other members of the genus. For the experts: Actinostachys minuta Amoroso & Coritico (Schizaeaceae), from Mindanao, Philippines, is described herein…

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