Drivers of species knowledge across the tree of life.

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relationships between scientific (number of publications) and societal (number of views in Wikipedia) interest, and species-level morphological, ecological, and sociocultural factors. Across a random selection of 3019 species spanning 29 Phyla/Divisions, we show that sociocultural factors are the most important correlates of scientific and societal interest in biodiversity, including the fact that a species is useful or harmful to humans, has a common name, and is listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Furthermore, large-bodied, broadly distributed, and taxonomically unique species receive more scientific and societal attention, whereas colorfulness and phylogenetic proximity to humans correlate exclusively with societal attention. These results highlight a favoritism toward limited branches of the Tree of Life, and that scientific and societal priorities in biodiversity research broadly align. This suggests that we may be missing out on key species in our research and conservation agenda simply because they are not on our cultural radar.

New record of Epistylis obliqua Sommer, 1951 (Ciliophora, Peritrichia) on aquatic mite Unionicola minor (Soar 1900) (Acari, Hydrachnidia).

This article deals with the report of a colonial peritrich ciliate species Epistylis obliqua Sommer, 1951 as epibiont on hydrachnid mite Unionicola minor (Soar 1900) from the freshwater in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The finding of the species is the first after its original description as well as the first finding on a mite which belongs to family Unionicolidae Oudemans, 1909. The systematic position, improved diagnosis and morphometrics characteristic of E. obliqua are presented in the present study.

Marine mites (Acari: Hydrachnidia) of the Mediterranean Sea: Descriptions of two new species, key for identification and future prospects.

This paper provides a current overview of the diversity of the marine water mite family Pontarachnidae of the Mediterranean Sea. The checklist includes ten species from two genera, i.e. Litarachna Walter, 1925 and Pontarachna Philippi, 1840. Two species i.e., Litarachna muratsezgini sp. nov. and Pontarachna turcica sp. nov. from the Gulf of Antalya (Levantine Sea, Turkey), are described as new for science. Moreover, the key for the identification of Mediterranean Pontarachnidae species and a brief discussion on the current gaps and future prospects of our knowledge of this important but neglected component of the marine meiofauna are given.

Two new species of the marine water mite family Pontarachnidae (Acari: Hydrachnidia) from the Gulf of Antalya, Turkey.

Two new species of the marine water mite family Pontarachnidae, i.e., Litarachna enigmatica and L. antalyaensis are described from the Gulf of Antalya, Turkey. Litarachna enigmatica is unique in the postgenital sclerite having a pair of so-called wheel-like acetabula, a character so far found only in the females of Pontarachna. Litarachna antalyaensis is the second known species of the L. duboscqi-species group characterized by the absence of a ventral tubercle on P-2 and presence of a ventral tubercle on P-4, from the Mediterranean Sea. The new species can be separated from the widely distributed L. duboscqi in the glandularium-like structure posterior to the fourth coxal plates not fused with adjoining coxoglandularia 4.