Forest Disturbance Enhanced the Activity of Epedaphic Collembola in Windthrown Stands of the High Tatra Mountains

The study aimed to assess the response of ep- and hemiedaphic Collembola communities(activity, richness, community structure) to a disturbance, the subsequent management regime and to the season(summer, winter) in a High Tatra Mountains spruce forest destroyed by a windstorm.Fire and clear-cut resulted in an initial increase in the activity of Collembola inhabiting open areas,opportunistic or generalist species, while forest specialists diminished in numbers or disappeared.Our results indicated that treatment with nonextracted fallen trees(NEX) provided a better chance for forest species to survive compared with their survival in open habitats of extracted(EXT) and wildfire(FIR) treatments. Great species' potential of NEX treatment was indicated by Chao2 estimator and activity/species rarefaction curves. Communities of NEX treatment were more similar to the reference(REF) treatment, documented by ordination and cluster analyses. Thus, leaving fallen timber after a windthrow to natural process of succession is suitable for survival of forest species and maintenance of diversity in forests restoration than timber extraction.Community structure in wildfire(FIR) stands was the most dissimilar to the other treatments. Most of the species trapped in this treatment belonged to hemiedaphic life forms, while the activity of larger epedaphic species diminished. In contrast, the highest number of trapped Collembola in EXT treatment was connected with the larger-bodied epigeic species with fast dispersal ability. The trapping period affected both the number of individuals and species richness;Collembola activity and species diversity in the individual treatments were lower in winter compared with the summer period. Several species increased activity during the winter period, namely Folsomia penicula, Friesea mirabilis, F. truncata, Hypogastrura socialis and Protaphorura aurantiaca.

Morphology versus DNA barcoding： two sides of the same coin. A case study of Ceutorhynchus erysimi and C. contractus identification

Genotyping of 2 well-known weevil species from the genus Ceutorhynchus （Coleoptera： Curculionidae） distributed in west Palearctic, C. erysimi and C. contractus, revealed phenotype versus genotype inconsistencies in a set of 56 specimens （25 C. erysimi and 31 C. contractus） collected from 25 locations in Serbia and Montenegro. An analysis of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene （CO1）, widely used as a barcoding region, and a nuclear gene, elongation factor-v （EF-1α）, revealed stable genetic divergence among these species. The average uncorrected pairwise distances for the CO1 and EF-1α genes were 3.8%, and 1.3%, respectively, indicating 2 genetically well-segregated species. However, the genetic data were not congruent with the phenotypic characteristics of the studied specimens. In the first place, C. erysimi genotypes were attached to specimens with phenotypic characteristics of C. contractus. Species-specific PCR-RFLP assays for the barcoding gene COIwere applied for the molecular identification of 101 additional specimens of both morphospecies （33 C. erysimi and 68 C. contractus） and were found to confirm this incongruity. The discrepancy between the genetic and morphological data raises the question of the accuracy of using a barcoding approach, as it may result in misleading conclusions about the taxonomic position of the studied organism. Additionally, the typological species concept shows considerable weakness when genetic data are not supported with phenotypic characteristics as in case of asymmetric introgression, which may cause certain problems, especially in applied studies such as biological control programs in which the biological properties of the studied organisms are the main focus.