Coastal wetlands can serve different ecological functions across the non-breeding season, so a fixed midwinter survey period may not fully represent seasonal bird use. We evaluated how much information from an extended October–March window was captured by the December–January standard window at the Janghang coast, Republic of Korea, using monthly surveys across nine fixed sections over five wintering seasons (30 surveys). We compared species richness, community composition, species-level non-detection, threatened-species representation, and peak observed counts. The standard window recorded 67–77 species per winter versus 84–95 in the extended window, with a pooled observed representativeness of 78.33%. At a common sample coverage of 0.9850, estimated species richness was 94.00 versus 111.41 species (descriptive coverage-standardized representativeness, 84.37%; no formal test). PERMANOVA indicated an association between survey period and community composition (R2 = 0.145, p = 0.004), although dispersion differed and ANOSIM showed little separation between periods. Twenty-six species were never detected during December–January, including several threatened species, and the standard-window maximum matched the extended-window maximum in 30.18% of species–wintering-season combinations. These results suggest that standardized midwinter surveys remain useful for long-term comparison, while surveys outside the core midwinter period may provide complementary information on seasonal occurrence, community variation, and conservation-priority species.
To understand the spatial and seasonal variations of fish communities in Taiwanese estuaries, this study collected environmental DNA (eDNA) water samples and assessed environmental parameters from four estuaries in northeastern, southeastern, northwestern, and southwestern Taiwan between February and December 2023. The 12S rRNA genetic marker was used as a mini-barcode to detect fish compositions in 16 samples. Assessment of environmental parameters revealed that (1) there were significant differences between estuaries but no differences between seasons; (2) the northwestern estuary exhibited the greatest seasonal variation; and (3) the greatest spatial variation was exhibited in summer. Fish community analysis revealed that (1) fish diversity was highest in the northeastern estuary and lowest in the southeastern estuary; (2) fish compositions significantly differed among the estuaries; (3) fish compositions in the southeastern estuary exhibited the greatest seasonal variation, and those in the northeastern estuary exhibited the smallest seasonal variation; (4) fish compositions in winter slightly differed from those in the other seasons; and (5) invasive fish species were present in all estuaries. In summary, the fish compositions in Taiwanese estuaries were influenced by local environmental variables and ocean currents.
Biological specimens collected and deposited in museum collections are a valuable resource for ecological and evolutionary research and species conservation, especially in species-rich but poorly documented tropical areas. The utility of these collected specimens for basic science and conservation is greatly enhanced by combined digital collections of all available specimens, including date of collection and georeferenced location data. In this paper, we introduce a publicly available, digitized, and georeferenced dataset of freshwater fishes of Ghana aggregated from eleven different research institutions and museums. The dataset contains 2696 total collection records representing 23,001 individuals, 224 species, and 38 families of freshwater fishes in Ghana. This dataset is characterized by extreme taxonomic, spatial, and temporal disparities in collection records. In spite of these disparities, analysis of the dataset can yield important immediate contributions to the conservation of freshwater fishes in Ghana. We suggest methods to efficiently augment these valuable data, and we anticipate that this dataset will be a valuable resource for scientific research and conservation efforts in Ghana and other parts of West Africa.
One of the unresolved issues in modern fungal molecular systematics is the lack of criteria for distinguishing intraspecific from interspecific variability of genetic markers. This paper discusses the results of an analysis of 69 original ITS sequences obtained from fungi collected in the Altai, the Urals, and northern Kazakhstan regions, and 42 sequences retrieved from GenBank and UNITE, belonging to two cryptic, sympatric polypore species: Fomes fomentarius (L.) Fr. and Fomes inzengae (Ces. & De Not.) Cooke. The sequences were divided into geographic groups reflecting a wide range of climatic conditions (from subarctic to subtropical) and geographic distances between sampling locations. Both species are characterized by low intragroup nucleotide diversity of ITS sequences and high nucleotide similarity, indicating low individual variability. A high, nearly complete identity in the ITS region of rDNA is also characteristic at the intergroup level, expressed in very low nucleotide divergence and high nucleotide similarity of ITS sequences from different geographic groups. The fixation index, calculated from the ratio of nucleotide diversity to divergence of ITS sequences, indicates a complete absence of genetic differentiation between local populations of F. inzengae and moderate differentiation in F. fomentarius. However, between populations of these two species, even in areas of their joint distribution, complete or very high genetic isolation occurs, confirming the validity of dividing F. fomentarius sensu lato into two cryptic sympatric species—F. fomentarius and F. inzengae.
