A new species of Cetopsorhamdia (Siluriformes: Heptapteridae) from the Upper Amazon River basin.

A new species of Cetopsorhamdia is described from material collected on rapid inventories and ichthyological expeditions in the Amazon region of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. The new species can be differentiated from all other species of Cetopsorhamdia by the colouration pattern on fins, number of vertebrae, number of ribs, level insertion of dorsal fin, number of rays on dorsal and pectoral fin, osteological characters and several other morphometric characters. The new species is distributed along tributaries of the upper Amazon River basin in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador.

Applied science facilitates the large-scale expansion of protected areas in an Amazonian hot spot.

Meeting international commitments to protect 17% of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide will require >3 million square kilometers of new protected areas and strategies to create those areas in a way that respects local communities and land use. In 2000-2016, biological and social scientists worked to increase the protected proportion of Peru's largest department via 14 interdisciplinary inventories covering >9 million hectares of this megadiverse corner of the Amazon basin. In each landscape, the strategy was the same: convene diverse partners, identify biological and sociocultural assets, document residents' use of natural resources, and tailor the findings to the needs of decision-makers. Nine of the 14 landscapes have since been protected (5.7 million hectares of new protected areas), contributing to a quadrupling of conservation coverage in Loreto (from 6 to 23%). We outline the methods and enabling conditions most crucial for successfully applying similar campaigns elsewhere on Earth.

Review of Ancistrus (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from the northwestern Guiana Shield, Orinoco Andes, and adjacent basins with description of six new species.

The Orinoco Andes and northwestern Guiana Shield (Essequibo, Orinoco, Branco, and upper Negro) were found to contain 11 species of Ancistrus, six of which are new. We additionally examine A. brevifilis from the Río Tuy of Venezuela and A. trinitatis from the island of Trinidad. The species in the region can be broken up into dorsoventrally flattened species (A. leoni new species, A. lithurgicus, and A. macropthalmus), white to yellow-dotted species (A. kellerae new species, A. nudiceps, and A. patronus new species), wide-jawed species (A. amaris new species and A. yutajae new species), and white-spotted species (A. brevifilis, A. leucostictus, A. trinitatis, A. saudades new species, and A. triradiatus). Distributions of Ancistrus support the Proto-Berbice hypothesis as A. saudades is found in the upper reaches of the Ventuari, Caura, and Caroni rivers, which were thought to have once flowed into the Proto-Berbice. In addition, although A. nudiceps does not appear to have split once the Takutu River was captured by the Branco, the progenitor of A. leucostictus and A. saudades did speciate with the populations on either side of the Rupununi Portal differing by 7% sequence divergence of the mitochondrial Cytochrome b gene. Besides the descriptions of the new species, we redescribe the others occurring in the area, and adjacent watersheds. We provide a key for their identification, and a preliminary hypothesis of relationships based on DNA sequences of the few species for which tissue samples are available.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) Detection Probability Is Influenced by Seasonal Activity of Organisms.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) holds great promise for conservation applications like the monitoring of invasive or imperiled species, yet this emerging technique requires ongoing testing in order to determine the contexts over which it is effective. For example, little research to date has evaluated how seasonality of organism behavior or activity may influence detection probability of eDNA. We applied eDNA to survey for two highly imperiled species endemic to the upper Black Warrior River basin in Alabama, US: the Black Warrior Waterdog (Necturus alabamensis) and the Flattened Musk Turtle (Sternotherus depressus). Importantly, these species have contrasting patterns of seasonal activity, with N. alabamensis more active in the cool season (October-April) and S. depressus more active in the warm season (May-September). We surveyed sites historically occupied by these species across cool and warm seasons over two years with replicated eDNA water samples, which were analyzed in the laboratory using species-specific quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays. We then used occupancy estimation with detection probability modeling to evaluate both the effects of landscape attributes on organism presence and season of sampling on detection probability of eDNA. Importantly, we found that season strongly affected eDNA detection probability for both species, with N. alabamensis having higher eDNA detection probabilities during the cool season and S. depressus have higher eDNA detection probabilities during the warm season. These results illustrate the influence of organismal behavior or activity on eDNA detection in the environment and identify an important role for basic natural history in designing eDNA monitoring programs.