Phylogenetic diversity only weakly mitigates climate-change-driven biodiversity loss in insect communities.

To help address the underrepresentation of arthropods and Asian biodiversity from climate-change assessments, we carried out year-long, weekly sampling campaigns with Malaise traps at different elevations and latitudes in Gaoligongshan National Park in southwestern China. From these 623 samples, we barcoded 10,524 beetles and compared scenarios of climate-change-induced biodiversity loss, by designating seasonal, elevational, and latitudinal subsets of beetles as communities that plausibly could go extinct as a group, which we call "loss sets". The availability of a published mitochondrial-genome-based phylogeny of the Coleoptera allowed us to compare the loss of species diversity with and without accounting for phylogenetic relatedness. We hypothesised that phylogenetic relatedness would mitigate extinction, since the extinction of any loss set would result in the disappearance of all its species but only part of its evolutionary history, which is still extant in the remaining loss sets. We found different patterns of community clustering by season and latitude, depending on whether phylogenetic information was incorporated. However, accounting for phylogeny only slightly mitigated the amount of biodiversity loss under climate change scenarios, against our expectations: there is no phylogenetic "escape clause" for biodiversity conservation. We achieve the same results whether phylogenetic information was derived from the mitogenome phylogeny or from a de novo barcode-gene tree. We encourage interested researchers to use this data set to study lineage-specific community assembly patterns in conjunction with life-history traits and environmental covariates.

Diversity and human perceptions of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) in Southeast Asian megacities.

Urbanization requires the conversion of natural land cover to cover with human-constructed elements and is considered a major threat to biodiversity. Bee populations, globally, are under threat; however, the effect of rapid urban expansion in Southeast Asia on bee diversity has not been investigated. Given the pressing issues of bee conservation and urbanization in Southeast Asia, coupled with complex factors surrounding human-bee coexistence, we investigated bee diversity and human perceptions of bees in four megacities. We sampled bees and conducted questionnaires at three different site types in each megacity: a botanical garden, central business district, and peripheral suburban areas. Overall, the mean species richness and abundance of bees were significantly higher in peripheral suburban areas than central business districts; however, there were no significant differences in the mean species richness and abundance between botanical gardens and peripheral suburban areas or botanical gardens and central business districts. Urban residents were unlikely to have seen bees but agreed that bees have a right to exist in their natural environment. Residents who did notice and interact with bees, even though being stung, were more likely to have positive opinions towards the presence of bees in cities.

Redescription of three Hippasa species from China (Araneae: Lycosidae), with a proposed species group-division and diagnosis.

The genus Hippasa is a group of web-weaving lycosids, whose web is funnel-like, quite similar to those of the Agelenidae. In this paper, based on published papers and specimens from China, we diagnose and discuss the composition of this genus. Two species groups are recognised, the Hippasa greenalliae-group (12 species and a subspecies) mainly from Asia and the Hippasa partita-group (17 species), which is distributed in both South Asia and Africa. In China, there are three Hippasa species: H. holmerae Thorell, 1895, H. lingxianensis Yin & Wang, 1980 (revalidated) and H. lycosina Pocock, 1900. The Japanese species, H. babai Tanikawa, 2007 is newly synonymised with H. lingxianensis. Two Hippasa species, H. agelenoides (Simon, 1884) and H. greenalliae (Blackwall, 1867) have never been found in China. Morphological illustrations, photos and redescriptions of H. holmerae, H. lingxianensis and H. lycosina are provided, based on Chinese specimens.

The first record of the wolf spider subfamily Zoicinae from China (Araneae: Lycosidae), with the description of two new species.

The subfamily Zoicinae Lehtinen & Hippa, 1979 is here first recorded from China with the description of a new species in the genus Zoica Simon, 1898, Z. unciformis sp. nov. from Wild Elephant Valley (Yunnan) and a new species in the genus Lysania Thorell, 1890, L. deangia sp. nov., from a rubber plantation in Nangsang Village (Yunnan). Lysania pygmaea Thorell, 1890 is recorded for the first time in China, from three localities in Yunnan and Guangxi and is redescribed here.