The Universalmuseum Joanneum is a multidisciplinary museum with buildings in several locations in the province of Styria, Austria. It has galleries and collections in many subject areas including archaeology, geology, paleontology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, history, art and folk culture. It is the oldest museum in Austria as well as the largest universal museum in central Europe with over 4.5 million objects in 13 departments and 12 locations in the Styrian cities of Graz, Stainz, Trautenfels, and Wagna (Flavia Solva). To reflect this status and its growth over the last two centuries, as well as to present a more recognizable image internationally, the Landesmuseum Joanneum was officially renamed to Universalmuseum Joanneum on 10 September 2009..
Subspecies of Parazoanthus axinellae have been largely ignored since their inception and modern authors write of morphotypes rather than attempting to assign their specimens to these existing taxa. This hesitation to apply subspecies names is rooted in taxon definitions written to 19th century standards coupled with failure to designate type specimens that could be reexamined for clarification. Revealing the types or verifying that they no longer exist so that topotypes may be designated as neotypes creates a path for clarification of existing taxonomic hypotheses and discovering which modern morphotypes or cryptic taxa lay outside those circumscriptions. Here we reconstructed the history and updated the diagnoses of the types of P. axinellae and its nominal subspecies by reviewing historic scientific and archival documents, verifying type existence with their current caretakers, and reexamining their microanatomy. We identified type specimens and designated lectotypes and paralectotypes from the syntype series of Parazoanthus axinellae and subspecies axinellae, liguricus, and muelleri, redescribed them from histology of their type material, and provide diagnostic traits for identification in the field or laboratory. Type material for brevitentacularis was not recovered and permission to resample the type location has been denied.
When it comes to true romance, the relationship between a man and a woman surpasses anything comparable in the animal kingdom. This is due to our evolutionary past, in which solitary, tree-dwelling ape men were transformed by the rigors of life on the African savannah into loyal and caring human fathers. But everything in evolution comes at a price, both for men and women.
The Middle Miocene (late Sarmatian Central Paratethys stage) plant assemblage of Graz-Andritz comprises isolated leaves and a few fruit remains. The fossil-species represent mainly the swamp and riparian vegetation (cf. Glyptostrobus, Zingiberites, Platanus, Liquidambar, Ulmus, Myrica, Salix, Decodon, Byttneriophyllum/Banisteriaecarpum and others). In addition, a number of plants probably grew at greater distance from the lake and represent well-drained lowland and upland forests. These include Buxus, Rosa, Fagus haidingeri, Betula similis, and Acer jurenakii. The flora of Andritz shows distinct similarities with Sarmatian and Pannonian plant assemblages in the Styrian and Pannonian basins (Gratkorn, Kirchberg/Raab, Paldau, Felsőtárkány, Rózsaszentmárton), sharing diagnostic taxa such as Zingiberites/Musophyllum, Acer jurenakii, Byttneriophyllum, and Banisteriaecarpum. In addition, marked similarity is seen with Pontian/Dacian assemblages from the Transcarpathian Basin. Plant climate proxies from several Sarmatian localities in the Pannonian Basin indicate a climate with both temperature and precipitation seasonality but without severe drought periods. Biogeographic patterns in the leaf/fruit assemblage of Andritz show contrasting patterns of endemism and relictualism. For instance, Acer jurenakii was an endemic element in the Pannonian Basin during the late Neogene. This pattern appears to be characteristic of temperate elements such as Berberis and Acer spp., which show a high degree of endemism during the Neogene of Central Europe. In contrast, Byttneriophyllum/Banisteriaecarpum was a fossil-taxon with a complex biogeographic history involving all of Eurasia and a stratigraphic range from the Eocene to the Pliocene. This relict taxon in the Andritz flora went extinct during the Pliocene.
The Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) is an invasive species and a competent vector of numerous pathogens. Its establishment in Austria represents a growing public health concern, underscoring the need for effective surveillance strategies. In Austria, two complementary monitoring systems are implemented, an expert-based ovitrap monitoring programme and a citizen science-based monitoring approach. This study investigates whether combining structured expert monitoring with citizen science reporting provides measurable benefits and identifies which advantages are most relevant. We analysed data from Austria’s nationwide ovitrap monitoring programme (following AIM-SURV protocol) and the citizen science project “Mosquito Alert” between 2020 and 2024. Both systems were evaluated at two spatial resolutions (5 × 5 km2 and 20 × 20 km2 grids) to quantify detection coverage, timing, and contribution to tracking spatial spread. Combining ovitrap monitoring with the citizen science-based approach significantly improved detection coverage and spatiotemporal resolution. At fine scale (5 × 5 km2), the integrated approach increased positive grid cells by up to 70
