Urban biological diversity and new species - everywhere

Science Daily/Natural History Museaum of Los Angeles/3/25/15. "30 new species discovered in Los Angeles in first-ever intensive urban biodiversity survey." 

New fly species x 30, "Our City ecology is our environment"

"A new paper to be published in the journal Zootaxa (April 6, 2015) describes 30 new insect species in a single genus, Megaselia, of the fly family Phoridae. Describing 30 species in a single paper is rare, but what's especially striking is that all these come from urban Los Angeles.  The discoveries come from researchers in the BioSCAN project (Biodiversity Science: City and Nature) at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM). The BioSCAN project is a three year investigation of patterns of biodiversity in and around urban Los Angeles, based on sampling the world's most diverse fauna: insects. Local residents participate in the study by hosting one of the 30 sampling sites, each of which has a continuously operating insect trap and a microclimate weather station. Every household's set of samples yielded at least one of the 30 new species, prompting the researchers to name each species after the resident in whose back yard the species was found.

....  Lead author Emily Hartop, an entomologist at NHM, examined over 10,000 specimens of phorid flies from three months of the samples to find these 30 new species. This result clearly demonstrates the extraordinary level of biodiversity that remains to be discovered even in heavily human-influenced areas. .... Urban biodiversity is immediately important to humans -- urban ecosystems deliver ecosystem services critical for human survival right where people live.  

Dr. Brian Brown, Curator of Entomology at NHM and principal investigator of BioSCAN, has extensive experience exploring and discovering insect biodiversity in tropical areas like Costa Rica. Goaded by a bet with an NHM trustee, he set out to prove that he could discover a new species in a Los Angeles backyard. .... "I always thought we had the potential to discover new species wherever we sample -- urban, tropical, anywhere. But 30 new species from a heavily urbanized area is really astounding," Dr. Brown said.   Read article.

Reference, fly new species  - BioSCAN/About . "In 2012, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County launched a new research initiative: NHM Biodiversity Science: City and Nature (NHM BioSCAN). This first-of-its-kind scientific investigation will discover and explore biodiversity in and around one of the world’s largest cities: Los Angeles. In three years of sampling from the urban core right out through less-urban surrounding areas, we will focus on the insects, the most diverse group of animals on our planet."

Related. fly new species articles -  Gizmodo/Annalee Newitz, 3/26/15. "30 previously-unknown species of fly discovered in Los Angeles." "Nature doesn't end at the borders of a city — it's just transformed. That's why scientists are finding new animal species in urban areas, where the ecosystems favor scavengers, hardy weeds, and junk-eaters. It probably comes as no surprise that the sprawling city of Los Angeles is home to its own unique fly species."  Huffington Post/Aaron Pomerantz, 3/25/15, "Los Angeles's 30 Newest Species." ... Future outlooks. ... This gives ample opportunity for the next generation of scientists and citizen scientists to uncover more unknown species, describe their life histories, observe new behaviors and teach us all how these enigmatic creatures impact the urban ecosystem and affect our lives.

Related, ant diversity (its only fair) -  Science Daily/North Carolina State University, 11/12/14. "Ant inhabitants of New York City: High diversity underfoot in urban environments." .... "To explore this issue, the researchers decided to focus on ants, partly because ants are ecologically important, but also because the ant species found in a given area can tell you a lot about its environment. The researchers collected ant samples at approximately 50 sites in Manhattan, including street medians, urban forests and recreational areas in city parks. They examined each site thoroughly, turning over rocks and sifting through leaf litter. The biggest surprise to the researchers was that the type of urban habitat was more important in determining ant diversity than the proximity between habitats. Sites in urban forests that were far apart had more similar species than an urban forest site and a recreational area site that were right next to each other.It's amazing how much diversity we found," Savage says. "We found 42 different species across all the sites."

Note photographs:  30 flies by Kelsey Bailey from BioSCAN Buzz.

Posted by Kathy Meeh