New Genera and Species Records of Nicaraguan Eumolpinae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) Including a New Species in a New Generic Record for Central America.

In this work, we have examined a large sample of Eumolpinae leaf beetles from Nicaragua and found 18 species reported for the first time in this country, including the new species Caryonoda funebris n. sp., which also represents a new genus record for Central America, and two genera of Typophorini not reported from Nicaragua so far: Paria LeConte, 1858 and Tijucana Bechyné, 1957. Apart from the description of the new species and taxonomic commentaries on each of the new country records, we also illustrate these species along with drawings of male genitalia and spermathecae when available to assist the interpretation of our taxonomic decisions in the future. We take the opportunity in this work to formalize the combination of Chrysodina cupriceps Lefèvre, 1877 as Chrysodinopsis cupriceps (Lefèvre) n. comb.

Systematic revision of Central American Calligrapha Chevrolat of the subgenus Erythrographa subgen. nov. (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae, Chrysomelinae).

In this work, I revise a group of thirteen species in a natural assemblage of Calligrapha Chevrolat previously shown to represent a distinct and highly divergent lineage relative to other Calligrapha. The group is given subgeneric status, under the name Erythrographa subgen. nov., based on the morphological features of its representatives, which include reddish testaceous color to dark parts of body, including elytral markings, the presence of two spots enclosed by the humeral lunule, and a bifid end of the flagellum in male genitalia, among other typical features. One of the species of the new subgenus is also new and formally described as Calligrapha synthesys sp. nov. All the species of the subgenus Erythrographa subgen. nov. are found in Mexico (with the exception of C. wickhami, only known from southern Texas), with five species with larger distributions, reaching Nicaragua (C. notatipennis Stål), Costa Rica (C. labyrinthica Stål) or Panama (C. suboculata Stål, C. synthesys sp. nov. and C. tortilis Stål). The subgenus can be considered Neotropical, endemic of Central America and particularly diverse in the Mexican Transition Zone, between the Nearctic and Neotropical realms.

Systematic revision of Calligrapha Chevrolat (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) with pale spots on dark elytra and description of two new species.

In this work, a group of seven species of Calligrapha (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) with pale spots contrasting with dark background of elytra is revised and their distributions specified based on the material studied from sixteen museums. Among these species, two are new and formally described: C. pavimentata sp. nov. and C. zapoteca sp. nov. A pragmatic identification key is provided to identify these taxa and it is proposed that these species belong to four different evolutionary lineages.

Systematic revision of the genus Calligrapha Chevrolat (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae, Chrysomelinae) in Central America: The group of Calligrapha argus Stål.

Calligrapha Chevrolat is a large American leaf beetle genus of imprecise taxonomic boundaries. Most species occur in Central and South America where they have not been subject to modern systematic revisions. This work is the first attempt to clarify the systematics of the group by focusing on a relatively diverse species group well characterized from a morphological standpoint: the group of C. argus Stål. I provide a pragmatic identification key for major lineages in Calligrapha, highlighting a potentially useful character for supra-specific rank systematics within this genus, namely the shape of the distal end of the flagellum in the penis. This key helps recognizing the C. argus species group as one with species having a single spot enclosed by humeral lunule and a complete arcuate band, laterally confluent with subsutural stripe (except in C. elegantula Jacoby), deep hypomeral furrow and with characteristic ventral carving at apex of flagellum, as major distinguishing features. The species group is subdivided into fourteen species, whereby one previously described taxon, C. famularis Stål, is subordinated as subspecies of C. geographica Stål stat. nov., and two new species from southern Mexico and Guatemala are described: C. anabelae sp. nov. and C. catarinae sp. nov. An identification key for all the species in the group is provided, as well as collection data for the approximately 2,100 specimens determined for this work and distribution maps based on these collection data. The group is centred in the Caribbean Mesoamerican biogeographic domain, with two species reaching the California-Rocky Mountain domain to the north (C. ancoralis Stål and C. diversa Stål), and three species reaching the Caribbean Northwest-South American domain to the south (C. argus Stål, C. diversa Stål and C. simillima Stål).

Automated DNA-based plant identification for large-scale biodiversity assessment.

Rapid degradation of tropical forests urges to improve our efficiency in large-scale biodiversity assessment. DNA barcoding can assist greatly in this task, but commonly used phenetic approaches for DNA-based identifications rely on the existence of comprehensive reference databases, which are infeasible for hyperdiverse tropical ecosystems. Alternatively, phylogenetic methods are more robust to sparse taxon sampling but time-consuming, while multiple alignment of species-diagnostic, typically length-variable, markers can be problematic across divergent taxa. We advocate the combination of phylogenetic and phenetic methods for taxonomic assignment of DNA-barcode sequences against incomplete reference databases such as GenBank, and we developed a pipeline to implement this approach on large-scale plant diversity projects. The pipeline workflow includes several steps: database construction and curation, query sequence clustering, sequence retrieval, distance calculation, multiple alignment and phylogenetic inference. We describe the strategies used to establish these steps and the optimization of parameters to fit the selected psbA-trnH marker. We tested the pipeline using infertile plant samples and herbivore diet sequences from the highly threatened Nicaraguan seasonally dry forest and exploiting a valuable purpose-built resource: a partial local reference database of plant psbA-trnH. The selected methodology proved efficient and reliable for high-throughput taxonomic assignment, and our results corroborate the advantage of applying 'strict' tree-based criteria to avoid false positives. The pipeline tools are distributed as the scripts suite 'BAGpipe' (pipeline for Biodiversity Assessment using GenBank data), which can be readily adjusted to the purposes of other projects and applied to sequence-based identification for any marker or taxon.