David L Wagner

• University of Connecticut

Growing evidence suggests that organisms with narrow niche requirements are particularly disadvantaged in small habitat patches, typical of fragmented landscapes. However, the mechanisms behind this relationship remain unclear. Dietary specialists may be particularly constrained by the availability of their food resources as habitat area shrinks. F...

Zygaenidae, also known as burnet, forester, smoky, or leaf skeletonizer moths, are a family of mainly diurnal moths well known for their aposematic colouration and the ability to release hydrogen cyanide as a defence mechanism. So far, few attempts have been made to understand the evolutionary history of the global zygaenid fauna. Here, we inferred...

Dryocampa kendalli n. sp.—a diminutive North American saturniid—is described from buckeye-rich bottomlands of the Hill Country of Texas. Adults have subdued yellow and pink maculation and often a dusky aspect that distinguishes them from their eastern sister species D. rubicunda. While the new species COI barcode differs from that of D. rubicunda b...

Climate warming is considered to be among the most serious of anthropogenic stresses to the environment, because it not only has direct effects on biodiversity, but it also exacerbates the harmful effects of other human‐mediated threats. The associated consequences are potentially severe, particularly in terms of threats to species preservation, as...

Biodiversity is in crisis, and insects are no exception. To understand insect population and community trends globally, it is necessary to identify and synthesize diverse datasets representing different taxa, regions, and habitats. The relevant literature is, however, vast and challenging to aggregate. The Entomological Global Evidence Map (EntoGEM...

Norape sorpresa sp. nov. Wagner & Matson occurs from extreme southeastern Arizona south into Sonora, Mexico. Beyond differences in leg color, adult external features do not allow ready separation of this species from the other two white Norape that occur north of Mexico. However, genital features, COI barcodes, and larval characters distinguish the...

Understanding spatiotemporal trends on insect-plant interaction networks is essential to unveil the ecological and evolutionary processes driving herbivore specialisation. However, community studies accounting for temporal dynamics in host-plant specialisation of herbivorous insects are surprisingly scarce. Here, we investigated how seasonality aff...

Alypiodes Grote currently includes four recognized species of day-flying agaristine noctuids from Mexico and the American Southwest. Here we add a fifth, elevating the name Alypiodes flavilinguisGrote 1883rev. status from synonymy. DNA barcodes, larval characters, and adult markings that reliably differentiate Alypiodes flavilinguis from Alypiodes...

Remote sensing imagery can provide critical information on the magnitude and extent of damage caused by forest pests and pathogens. However, monitoring short‐term changes in deciduous forest condition caused by defoliating insects is challenging and requires approaches that directly account for seasonal vegetation dynamics. We implemented a previou...

Noctuidae are one of the world's most diverse, ecologically successful, and economically important animal lineages with over 12,000 species in ~1,150 genera. We inferred a phylogeny using eight protein-coding genes for the global fauna, greatly expanding upon previous attempts to stabilize Noctuidae higher classification by sampling 341 genera (nea...

Moths are the most taxonomically and ecologically diverse insect taxon for which there exist considerable time-series abundance data. There is an alarming record of decreases in moth abundance and diversity from across Europe, with rates varying markedly among and within regions. Recent reports from Costa Rica reveal steep cross-lineage declines of...

Almost 40 years ago, Terry L. Erwin published a seemingly audacious proposition: There may be as many as 30 million species of insects in the world. Here, we translate Erwin's verbal argument into a diversity‐ratio model—the Erwin Equation of Biodiversity—and discuss how it has inspired other biodiversity estimates. We categorize, describe the assu...

Stamnodes fergusonisp. nov. occurs from extreme southeastern Arizona through southern New Mexico east into western Texas, USA. Identity of the new species can be reliably determined by external features, genitalic characters, and COI haplotypes. Larvae are believed to be specialists on Salvia pinguifolia and S. ballotiflora . The adult and larval s...

Vertical niche partitioning might be one of the main driving forces explaining the high diversity of forest ecosystems. However, the forest's vertical dimension has received limited investigation, especially in temperate forests. Thus, our knowledge about how communities are vertically structured remains limited for temperate forest ecosystems. In...

We critically reexamine nine of the ten fossil specimens currently assigned to Hepialidae. Three fossils with impressions of wing veins and scales placed in the fossil genus Prohepialus Piton, 1940, and two mummified larvae that show apomorphic characters, have features that support placement in Hepialidae. The other four fossils that we evaluate,...

In recent decades, entomologists have documented alarming declines in occurrence, taxonomic richness, and geographic range of insects around the world. Additionally, some recent studies have reported that insect abundance and biomass, often of common species, are rapidly declining, which has led some to dub the phenomenon an “Insect Apocalypse”. Re...

Insect herbivores and their hostplants constitute much of Earth’s described biological diversity, but how these often-specialized associations diversify is not fully understood. We combined detailed hostplant data and comparative phylogenetic analyses of the lepidopteran family Momphidae to explore how shifts in the use of hostplant resources, not...

The Lactura Walker, 1854 fauna north of Mexico is revised. Six species are documented, one new species Lacturanalli Matson & Wagner, sp. n. is described, and two new synonymies are proposed: Lacturapsammitis (Zeller, 1872), syn. n. and L.rhodocentra (Meyrick, 1913), syn. n. One new subspecies Lacturasubfervenssapeloensis Matson & Wagner, ssp. n. is...

The life histories of Cerathosia tricolor Smith and Cydosia aurivitta Grote & Robinson are briefly described and their larvae figured. Data from seven gene regions (>5,500 base pairs) as well as larval morphology suggest both moths are misclassified in Eustrotiinae and Cydosiinae, respectively: Cerathosia Smith is transferred to Stiriinae, Cydosia...

Amphipyrinae have long been a catchall taxon for Noctuidae, with most members lacking discernible morphological synapomorphies that would allow their assignment to one of the many readily diagnosable noctuid subfamilies. Here data from seven gene regions (>5,500 base pairs) for more than 120 noctuid genera are used to infer a phylogeny for Amphipyr...

Reduced ecological specialization is an emerging, general pattern of ecological networks in fragmented landscapes. In plant–herbivore interactions, reductions in dietary specialization of herbivore communities are consistently associated with fragmented landscapes, but the causes remain poorly understood. We propose several hypothetical bottom–up a...

Satyrium favonius ontario: (W. H. Edwards) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) is considered to be a rare butterfly in the northeastern United States. It receives legal protection in the state of Massachusetts as a Species of Special Concern. We studied the ecology and natural history of a colony of S. f. ontario at Great Blue Hills Reservation in Canton, Ma...

A new species of Lactura is described from Texas: Lacturarubritegulasp. n. Identity of the new species can be reliably determined by both larval and adult characters, CO1 haplotypes, and its late-spring period of flight activity. Male genitalic features overlap with those of L.basistriga (Barnes & McDunnough, 1913), whereas female structures differ...

The larva of Lacosoma arizonicum Dyar is figured for the first time. This species was previously known to feed on oaks (Quercus), but no specific Quercus species has been reported. We studied the life history of L. arizonicum and confirm four larval host plants from field-collected larvae: Quercus arizonica, Q. emoryi, Q. gambelii, and Q. hypoleuco...

Tiger moths (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae: Arctiini) are notable for their specialized associations with hosts that produce toxic secondary compounds, and are thus an ideal study system for understanding insect-plant interactions and the evolution of antipredatory defense. Likewise, their sister lineage (Arctiinae: Lithosiini) has been document...

The middle-Holocene decline of Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière (eastern hemlock) across eastern North America has been attributed to various causes, including the widespread outbreak of an insect pest, such as Lambdina fiscellaria (hemlock looper). We tested this hypothesis by searching for insect remains in sediment cores from Hemlock Hollow, a sma...

An outbreak of Deidamia inscriptum (Lettered Sphinx Moth) caterpillars was noted in northeast Tennessee where Oxydendrum arboreum (Sourwood) trees were defoliated. Nearly all published literature and online resources list only plants in the grape family (Vitaceae) as larval food plants. Food-plant preference trials using fresh leaves of 3 woody pla...

A new species of Eupsilia Hübner phenotypically allied to E. cirriplaea (Franclemont, 1952) and E. sidus (Gueneé, 1852) is described from northeastern North America. Identification of E. schweitzeri, n. sp., is most reliably made on the basis of larval morphology or genetic data, although most adults can be determined using subtle forewing features...

Satyrium favonius ontario is considered to be one of the rarest eastern butterflies. We conducted a status survey and studied the ecology of this hairstreak at Great Blue Hills Reservation in Canton, MA—New England’s most reliable colony. Burlap banding to sample larvae proved to be a more productive censusing technique than traditional time-intens...

There are few fields of study in ecology where the correct identification of an organism, whether it is to the species or population level, has great an effect on ecosystem functioning and services as in the study of the biological control of pest species. This chapter reviews how incorrect taxonomic determinations can greatly affect the speed, saf...

The genus Rifargia includes four North American species: R. benitensis (Blanchard), R. ditta (Barnes and McDunnough), R. Subrotata (Harvey), and a new species, which is the western sister taxon of the latter. All are hackberry (Celtis) specialists. We provide images for each species, a larval key, and brief descriptions of the five instars for both...

More than 8.7 billion ash trees and saplings are estimated to grow in the lower 48 states (Flowers et al. 2013). Fraxinus species are also the dominant or co-dominant plants in 150 U.S. forest community types (U.S. National Vegetation Classification and NatureServe 2014), 16 of which are classified as being critically imperiled or imperiled by Natu...

We present results of an eight-gene molecular study of the subfamily Acronictinae and related Noctuidae. Amphipyrinae are recovered as sister to Acronictinae, but with weak support - not surprisingly, the content of the two subfamilies has often been mixed in classifications. Balsinae, previously placed near Acronictinae or within Noctuinae, is rec...

The northern oak hairstreak ( Satyrium favonius ontario (W. H. Edwards)) is one of the most infrequently encountered resident butterflies in New England; only three adults were seen over the five-year course of the Connecticut Butterfly Atlas project (O'Don-nell et al. 2007). Shapiro (1974) considered it one of the rarest northeastern butterflies,...

For many species, geographical ranges are expanding toward the poles in response to climate change, while remaining stable along range edges nearest the equator. Using long-term observations across Europe and North America over 110 years, we tested for climate change–related range shifts in bumblebee species across the full extents of their latitud...

We describe a new species, Erythrodiplax laselva (Libellulidae), that breeds in bromeliads and Cochliostema (Commelinaceae) in the eastern lowlands of Costa Rica. The closest known relative is thought to be E. castanea, widespread in Central and South America, and not E. bromeliicola, which is known to breed in bromeliads in Cuba and Jamaica. The m...

http://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/technology/pdfs/FHTET-2014-09_Biology_Control_EAB.pdf

Autumn remains a relatively neglected season in climate change research in temperate and arctic ecosystems. This neglect occurs despite the importance of autumn events, including leaf senescence, fruit ripening, bird and insect migration, and induction of hibernation and diapause. Changes in autumn phenology alter the reproductive capacity of indiv...

Significance Dietary specialization determines an organism’s resource base as well as impacts on host or prey species. There are important basic and applied reasons to ask why some animals have narrow diets and others are more generalized, and if different regions of the Earth support more specialized interactions. We investigated site-specific hos...

We describe five new micropterigid species representing three genera (Magnijuxta n. gen. and Sporaphaga n. gen., and Squamicornia Kristensen and Nielsen) of the Sabatinca group from Costa Rica’s Atlantic slope: Magnijuxta purpuravena n. sp., M. nishidai n. sp., M. watkinsi n. sp., Sporaphaga costaricensis n. sp., and S. purpuraguttata n. sp.). Adul...

Highly variable larvae in the genus Acronicta prompted A.R. Grote to proclaim "There would seem to be no genus which offers a more interesting field to the biologist for exploration" (Grote, 1895). Along with related genera in the subfamily Acronictinae, Acronicta underwent a whirlwind of taxonomic revision in its infancy, rife with synonyms and ri...

Transmission line corridors in forested landscapes provide important early successional habitats for a taxonomically rich array of invertebrates. In this study, we investigated the wild bee diversity at 19 sites along a transmission line right-of-way in southeastern Connecticut over a 2-yr period. One hundred sixty-three species representing 31 gen...

Apatclodes auduboni n. sp. is described from Cameron County in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Male and female genitalia and the larval stage are figured. Larvae A. auduboni n. sp. were recovered from lime pricklyash, Zanthoxylum fiigam (Rutaceae). We discuss evidence suggesting that the larva's bright coloration and conspicuous diurnal behav...

Transmission line corridors in forested landscapes provide important early successional habitats for a taxonomically rich array of native plant and animal life, including populations of rare species. We measured plant diversity and cover for 27 randomly selected paired powerline and woodland plots along a 140-km rights-of-way corridor that extended...

AbstractThe taxonomic composition and systematic position of Agriopodes Hampson is examined through an integrated approach using adult and larval morphology, biology, and molecular sequence data. The type-species of Agriopodes, Moma fallax Herrich-Schäffer is shown to be derived within the Acronicta grisea Walker species-group; accordingly, Agriopo...

A Triosteum-feeding species of Sympistis is described from eastern North America: Sympistis forbesi sp. n. Identity of the new species is most reliably determined from larval morphology and host plant association—both adult scaling and genitalic characters overlap with those of Sympisitis chionanthi, a Chionanthus and Fraxinus feeder.

World moth diversity is believed to be more than 225,000 species, much of which are dependent on the radiation of the flowering plants. This article begins with a synopsis of the higher classification and diversity of the order Lepidoptera, then reviews important aspects of the order’s biology. Throughout the article, emphasis is placed on the basa...

The native pieirid butterfly, Pieris oleracea, underwent a large range reduction in New England in the 20th century, likely due to the introduction the invasive butterfly Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae) to North America in 1860, and later the oliphagous parasitoid Cotesia glomerata (Hymen: Braconidae) in 1884. Thought extirpated from the state by the...

I will present a well-supported phylogenetic tree for all major clades North American Acronictinae (Dagger Moths) based on seven nuclear and one mitochondrial genes. Two currently recognized genera are shown to fall within the nominate genus. I will also discuss the extraordinary phenotypic evolution exhibited by acronictine larvae--both among spec...

Trace fossils of basal, apterygote (wingless) insects from the Pennsylva-nian-aged Rhode Island Formation of southeastern New England include the body imprint Tonganoxichnus buildexensis and the trackways Mitchellichnus cf. ferrydenensis, Siskemia elegans, Stiallia pilosa, and Stiaria intermedia. Trackways with double and triple medial impressions...

Pollinators such as bees are essential to the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. However, despite concerns about a global pollinator crisis, long-term data on the status of bee species are limited. We present a long-term study of relative rates of change for an entire regional bee fauna in the northeastern United States, based on >30,000 museum...

Bumble bees are an important group of wild pollinators in North America and considerable concern has been expressed over declines in their populations. However, before causes for declines can be assessed, it is essential that the geographical and chronological patterns of decline be discovered. Hitherto a lack of assessment of historical data has h...

Several North American bumblebee species have recently undergone dramatic declines. The use of managed, pathogen-carrying bumblebees for pollination of greenhouse crops began shortly before these declines, and wild bumblebees near greenhouses now have high pathogen loads. This has led to speculation that pathogen spillover from commercial bumblebee...

A grapevine leafminer Antispila oinophylla van Nieukerken & Wagner, sp. n., is described both from eastern North America (type locality: Georgia) and as a new important invader in North Italian vineyards (Trentino and Veneto Region) since 2006. The species is closely related to, and previously confused with Antispila ampelopsifoliella Chambers, 187...