Selection-Based Biodiversity at a Small Spatial Scale in a Low-Dispersing Insular Bird.

The blue tit is a highly mobile small passerine found in deciduous and evergreen oaks. In mainland populations, gene flow results in local maladaptive timing of breeding in evergreen oak forests, the rarer habitat. However, on the island of Corsica, two populations only 25 kilometers apart are highly specialized and differ between the two habitat types in breeding and morphological traits. In contrast to theoretical predictions about the homogenizing effects of gene flow, this highlights evolutionary consequences of habitat diversification and isolation at a small spatial scale in insular organisms, which should be taken into account in conservation policies.

A single response mechanism is responsible for evolutionary adaptive variation in a bird's laying date.

Many proximate factors determine a bird's laying date, including environmental and social stimuli as well as individual responses to internal and external factors. However, the relative importance of these factors has not been experimentally demonstrated. Here we show that (i) large differences in the onset of first clutches between different populations result from variation in different responses to photoperiod and not from variation in responses to any other proximate factors and (ii) the same response mechanism causes maladaptive laying dates in habitats modified by humans. We present, to our knowledge, the first experimental demonstration that a single response mechanism is responsible for evolutionary adaptive intraspecific variation in a vertebrate life history trait.

[The phlebotomines of Tunisia (Diptera-Phlebotominae). A revision of the systematics, distribution and behaviour (author's transl)]. / Les Phlébotomes de Tunisie (Diptera, Phlebotomidae). Mise au point systématique, chorologique et éthologique.

The authors present a revision of the systematics, distribution and ethology of the phlebotomine sandflies of Tunisia. They present a dichotomous key for 15 taxa. A biogeographical analysis shows the connexion between foci of visceral leishmaniasis and the zones of distribution of the subgenus Larroussius.

[Comments on the infraspecific taxonomy of Sergentomyia minuta (Rondani, 1843), S. africana]. / [Remarques sur la taxonomie infraspécifique de Sergentomyia minuta, Sergentomyia africana et Sergentomyia antennata]

The authors discuss the systematic value of the cibarial armature of three members of the genus Sergentomyia. Subspecies could not be differentiated by the number of teeth, nor could members of the antennata and africana complexes. Moreover, from this character, the minuta complex along the Mediterranean coast of Spain appears to represent a typical "cline".