Liu Cong, Fischer Georg, Hita Garcia Francisco, Yamane Seiki, Liu Qing, Peng Yan Qiong, Economo Evan P, Guénard Benoit, Pierce Naomi E
Department of Organismic and Evolutional Biology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Harvard University Cambridge United States of America.
Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa, Japan Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University Onna Japan.
Zookeys. 2020 Oct 26;978:1-171. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.978.55767. eCollection 2020.
China's Hengduan Mountain region has been considered one of the most diverse regions in the northern hemisphere. Its stunning topography with many deep valleys and impassable mountain barriers has promoted an astonishing diversification in many groups of organisms including plants, birds, mammals, and amphibians. However, the insect biodiversity in this region is still poorly known. Here, the first checklist of ant species from the Southern Hengduan Mountain region is presented, generated by sampling ant diversity using a wide array of collection methods, including Winkler leaf litter extraction, vegetation beating, and hand collection. 130 species/morphospecies from nine subfamilies and 49 genera were identified. Among them, 17 species from 13 genera represent new records for Yunnan province, and eight species are newly recorded for China. Moreover, we believe 41 novel morphospecies (31% of the total collected taxa) will prove to be new to science. These results highlight the rich ant fauna of this region and strongly support its status as a biodiversity hotspot. The current ant species checklist for the whole of Yunnan Province was updated by recording 550 named species from 99 genera. Taken together, our results suggest that the Yunnan ant fauna still remains under-sampled, and future sampling will likely yield many more species, among them many undescribed ones.
中国的横断山区被认为是北半球生物多样性最为丰富的地区之一。其令人惊叹的地形，有着众多深邃的山谷和难以逾越的山脉屏障，促使包括植物、鸟类、哺乳动物和两栖动物在内的许多生物群体实现了惊人的多样化。然而，该地区的昆虫生物多样性仍然鲜为人知。在此，我们呈现了横断山南段地区蚂蚁物种的第一份清单，这份清单是通过运用多种采集方法（包括温克勒氏落叶层提取法、植被拍打法和手工采集法）对蚂蚁多样性进行采样而生成的。共鉴定出9个亚科49属的130个物种/形态种。其中，来自13个属的17个物种是云南省新记录，8个物种是中国新记录。此外，我们认为41个新的形态种（占所采集分类单元总数的31%）将被证明是科学界新发现的物种。这些结果凸显了该地区丰富的蚂蚁动物区系，并有力地支持了其作为生物多样性热点地区的地位。通过记录来自99个属的550个已命名物种，更新了整个云南省目前的蚂蚁物种清单。综合来看，我们的结果表明云南蚂蚁动物区系的采样仍不充分，未来的采样可能会发现更多物种，其中许多是尚未描述的物种。
