Ming Bai

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Evolutionary biology faces the important challenge of determining how to interpret the relationship between selection pressures and evolutionary radiation of species. The different biodiversity indicators highlight the disparate nature of biodiversity investigations. However, the influence of ecological factors and the specificity of taxonomic phyl...

In this paper we update the knowledge on the species of Sericini occurring in the Nanling Mountains, China. This includes new records of 19 known species. Furthermore, six new species are described: Maladera paradaanensis Liu, Ahrens, Li & Yang, new species, M. tianqiae Liu, Ahrens, Li & Yang, new species, Neoserica (s. str.) parajingangshanica Liu...

Anomala calceuiformis Huang & Lu, sp. nov. is described as a new species based on specimens collected from Mangshan National Nature Reserve, Hunan Province, China. Anomala calceuiformis sp. nov., which has an elongate, red-brown body, a strongly reflected clypeus, and convex elytral intervals, is similar to Anomala fukiensis Machatschke, 1955, Anom...

A pair of intriguing phoretic instances are the burying beetle and Poecilochirus mites. Their interaction is environment-dependent and can be either mutualistic or antagonistic hostile depending on various biological and physical circumstances. In this study, we sequenced the complete mitogenomes of two Poecilochirus mite species, P. davydovae and...

Since invading Xinjiang, China in 2017, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), commonly known as the tomato leafminer or the South American tomato pinworm moth, has continuously expanded its scope of devastation. Because flight is a major means by which insects disperse, an insect flight mill was employed to elucidate the physiological...

The ability of many insects to adhere vertically or even upside down to smooth substrates is closely related to the morphology and distribution of the adhesive structures on their legs. During locomotion, the legs are in direct contact with different substrates, and it is hypothesized that the adhesive structures have been evolved as an adaption to...

Trictenotomidae, one of the most charismatic and enigmatic groups of beetles, known for their large size and distinctive mandibles, is widely distributed throughout tropical and subtropical Asia. New species are continually being discovered, and the known range of the group has been expanded considerably by the discovery of Autocrates maqueti Drumo...

Homoderus mellyi belongs to the Lucanidae family of Coleoptera. The first complete mitogenome of Homoderus is reported in this paper. The genome is 16,807 bp in length and contains the typical 37 genes with 22 transfer RNA genes, 13 protein coding genes, and 2 ribosomal RNA genes. The gene order is conserved across the lineage. The average base com...

Until the early 2000s, the genus Propomacrus was known to comprise two species, occurring in the Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast China. The discovery of Propomacrus muramotoae Fujioka in Tibet and subsequently in Bhutan and Nepal, might play a crucial role in bridging the geographical distribution gap of the Euchirini tribe between the Mediterr...

To date, five species of reddish-brown Neotriplax have been described, but their highly similar body color and other phenotypic traits make accurate taxonomy challenging. To clarify species-level taxonomy and validate potential new species, the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) was used for phylogenetic analysis and the geometric morphometrics of...

Eulophidae and Pteromalidae are parasitic wasps with a global distribution and import for the biological control of pests. They can be distributed in different altitude regions, but their morphological and genetic adaptations to different altitudes are unclear. Here, we collected specimens that belong to Eulophidae and Pteromalidae from various alt...

Evolutionary biology faces the important challenge of determining how to interpret the relationship between selection pressures and evolutionary radiation. The lack of morphological evidence on cross-species research adds to difficulty of this challenge. We proposed a new paradigm for evaluating the evolution of branches through changes in characte...

The South American tomato pinworm, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), has invaded most Afro-Eurasian countries. Since its first detection in China in late 2017, this pest has been now present in nearly 20 provinces/prefectures in China and is threating tomato and other Solanaceous crops such as potato, eggplant, and tobacco. Here,...

Introduction Coleoptera is the most species-rich order of animals with the widest distribution area; however, little is known about its global suitability distribution, and a substantial number of species are experiencing silent extinction. Most of Earth’s biocommunities are concentrated in biodiversity hotspots, and these hotspots receive the larg...

Until the advent of phylogenomics, the atypical morphology of extant representatives of the insect orders Grylloblattodea (ice‐crawlers) and Mantophasmatodea (gladiators) had confounding effects on efforts to resolve their placement within Polyneoptera. This recent research has unequivocally shown that these species‐poor groups are closely related...

Aim Knowledge of taxonomy and species distributions in highly diverse lineages of invertebrates remains too incomplete for the study of biogeographical patterns at the global scale. This limits the understanding of processes leading to the formation and maintenance of boundaries between major biogeographical realms. Site‐based metagenomic approache...

The beetle family Mysteriomorphidae (Coleoptera: Elateroidea) was recently described based on a single species from the mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. Only six specimens of an unknown sex were reported in previous studies. Here, for the first time, we examine female specimens of Mysteriomorphus Alekseev and Ellenberger, 2019 for which we describe th...

The water spider ( Argyroneta aquatica ) exhibits remarkable adaptability to thrive in aquatic environments and represents the only spider species capable of spending its entire life underwater. While its physiological and behavioral adaptations had been characterized, the genetic basis of underwater adaptation in spiders remains a fascinating topi...

The morphological diversity of insect mouthparts is closely related to changes in food sources and diets. Research into the structures of insect mouthparts may help to establish a fundamental basis for a better understanding of insect feeding mechanisms. In this study, we examined the fine morphology of the mouthparts of Illeis chinensis using scan...

Background Recently, machine learning (ML) has been widely used in species auto-identification systems for multi-scene applications in biodiversity, while most of the existing ML systems relying on images are limited to identifying the species on which they are trained, and unknown species out of the system are normally incorrectly identified. Res...

A novel design of a portable funnel light trap (PFLT) was presented for collecting insects in ecological studies. The trap consists of a compact plastic box equipped with a light source and power source, along with two plastic polypropylene interception vanes. The PFLT costs 18.3 USD per unit and weighs approximately 300 g. A maximum of six PFLT un...

Digitalized natural history collections serve as vital ecological and evolutionary research resources. Specimen retrieval based on morphological features allows for the rapid acquisition of similar specimens from these collections, aiding in maximizing the utilization of their resources and catering to the requirements of related research. However,...

Sampling is one of the most important and fundamental processes in field biology. Among many sampling methods in entomology, window traps have long been considered one of the most effective and standardized methods. Unfortunately, the DNA quality of samples collected by window traps is typically low due to incursion by water, mainly via rainfall. W...

In taxonomy, qualitative methods are commonly used to analyze morphological characters, which can lead to dramatic changes in higher taxa. Geometric morphometrics (GM) has proven to be useful for discriminating species in various taxonomy groups. However, the application of geometric morphometrics in supraspecies classification is relatively scarce...

We provide occurrence records of the members of dung beetle's tribe Onitini from the northern parts of Pakistan, including Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and Islamabad Capital Territory. This study is based on extensive field sampling from different ecological biomes including Alpine Meadows, the Sub-Alpine Zone, Mountain Temperate F...

We provide occurrence records of the members of dung beetle's tribe Onitini from the northern parts of Pakistan, including Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and Islamabad Capital Territory. This study is based on extensive field sampling from different ecological biomes including Alpine Meadows, the Sub-Alpine Zone, Mountain Temperate F...

The taxonomic composition, phylogeny, ecology, biology, behaviour, and fossil record of Proteininae Erichson, 1839 is reviewed to place the first Eocene fossil specimen from Baltic amber in the knowledge framework of this rove beetle subfamily. The Baltic amber fossil is a poorly preserved female which was examined using X-ray micro-computed tomogr...

The spider of Ectatosticta davidi, belonging to the lamp-shade web spider family, Hypochilidae, which is closely related to Hypochilidae and Filistatidae and recovered as sister of the rest Araneomorphs spiders. Here we show the final assembled genome of E. davidi with 2.16 Gb in 15 chromosomes. Then we confirm the evolutionary position of Hypochil...

Abstract The extent of the diversity of fossil handsome fungus beetles (Coleoptera: Endomychidae) is still poorly comprehended but in the recent years efforts have been made in their documentation. Recently, different taxa from mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar have been discovered and described. These represent the oldest known members of...

The rare inverse latitudinal diversity gradient is almost neglected compared with the dominant latitudinal diversity gradient, and the underlying mechanism of this biodiversity pattern remains elusive, especially for invertebrates. Necrophage trogid beetles are a vertebrate-dependent family group that may potentially serve as an environmental indic...

Discriminative traits are important in biodiversity and macroevolution, but extracting and representing these features from huge natural history collections using traditional methods can be challenging and time-consuming. To fully utilize the collections and their associated metadata, it is urgent now to increase the efficiency of automatic feature...

A fossil of Oniscidea, Tylidae gen. et sp. indet. from Kachin amber (Cretaceous Cenomanian), Myanmar, is described here. The convex body, the cephalon with a triangular protrusion between the antennae, and pereonites 2–6 with epimera demarcated from tergites indicate that this specimen belongs to the family Tylidae, but since it is not an adult the...

A hot topic in recent years is the prediction of the potential distribution of possible invasive insects. China is facing a great challenge due to invasive insects. Scarab beetles are a highly diverse group, and many of them are well-known invasive insects. Here, in order to prevent the invasion of scarab beetles in China, we screened the invasive...

The current paper gives an overview of the species of continental Asia so far assigned to the genus Microserica Brenske, 1894. Moronoserica Ahrens, Lukic & Liu, new genus, and Gastroserica (Helioserica Ahrens, Lukic & Liu, new subgenus), and 33 new species are described: Gastroserica bannok Ahrens, Lukic & Liu, new species, G. fumaria Ahrens, Lukic...

The phenomenon of exaggerated morphological structures has fascinated people for centuries. Beetles of the family Scarabaeidae show many very diverse exaggerated characters, for example, a variety of horns, enlarged mandibles or elongated antennal lamellae. Here, we report a new Mesozoic scarab, Antiqusolidus maculatus gen. et sp. n. from the Lower...

Furcanthicus gen. nov. (Anthicinae: Anthicini) and three new species from the Oriental region are described: Furcanthicus acutibialis sp. nov. (China: Tibet), F. telnovi sp. nov. (China: Yunnan), and F. validus sp. nov. (China: Sichuan). Some critical morphological characters of this genus are discussed. Eight new combinations are established for t...

Monolepta hieroglyphica (Motschulsky, 1858) has been recently revised as the synonym of M. signata (Oliver, 1808) based on morphological characteristics. M. quadriguttata (Motschulsky, 1860) was synonymized with M. signata over 100 years ago. However, this synonymy has not be confirmed by molecular data. This widely distributed and abundant species...

Helotid beetles are commonly found in places where sap flows from tree trunks and in crevices in bark. The Helotidae family is a rare and primitive group of Cucujoidea. To date, no complete mitochondrial (mt) genome has been sequenced for this family. To better understand the characteristics of the mt genome and the evolution of Cucujoidea, we sequ...

Species are fundamental biological units, but their discovery and delimitation requires appropriate data and methods. To better circumscribe species, we must improve our species concepts and bolster the underlying data resources necessary to enact them. Here, we provide six prescriptions for better collecting and synergizing our knowledge on specie...

Species are fundamental biological units, but their discovery and delimitation requires appropriate data and methods. To better circumscribe species, we must improve our species concepts and bolster the underlying data resources necessary to enact them. Here, we provide six prescriptions for better collecting and synergizing our knowledge on specie...

The spotted alfalfa aphid (SAA), Therioaphis trifolii, is a phloem-feeding pest with a complex life history, and it causes a tremendous global loss of crop yields. A large number of previous studies focused only on few-generation life tables, whereas multi-generation life tables could explore aphid adaptation processes that are poorly understood. I...

Lichens are well known as pioneer organisms or stress-tolerant extremophiles, potentially playing a core role in the early formation of terrestrial ecosystems. Epiphytic macrolichens are known to contribute to the water- and nutrient cycles in forest ecosystem. But due to the scarcity of fossil record, the evolutionary history of epiphytic macrolic...

This paper reviews current progresses on insect diversity monitoring in China and gives a brief introduction to the planning and progress of the Insect Diversity Monitoring Network, China (Sino BON–Insects). Because insects play a key role in ecosystem processes it is important to monitor their diversity over the long term. Different monitoring tec...

Background & Aims: We reviewed progress on insect biodiversity research over the past 30 years and further analyzed the trends, focusing on varied study sys tems (e.g. forest, grassland and agriculture etc.) and important functional insect groups, such as pollinators, herbivores and predators. Progresses: Declines of insect abundance and diversity...

In this paper we revised the species of Serica McLeay, 1819 (sensu lato) occurring in China an adjacent areas, and provide an update on the genus Nipponoserica Nomura, 1972. The revision resulted in one new combination: Serica adspersa (Frey, 1972), new combination. Thirty-nine new species are described: Nipponoserica daqiao Ahrens, Fabrizi & Liu,...

The Mesozoic, ca. 99-million-year-old Burmese amber is an incredible source of fossil beetles that have been very actively studied in recent times and have already significantly improved our knowledge about the evolution of the large family of Staphylinidae, the rove beetles. Nevertheless, new extinct taxa of high phylogenetic interest are being di...

Conglobation is an adaptive behaviour occurring independently in various animal groups. Here, we study the evolution of conglobation in Ceratocanthinae, a beetle group with the ability to roll three body segments into a tight ball. It is here implied that this ability evolved only once in the Mesozoic. Evidence is offered suggesting that the high d...

EDITORIAL Positioning taxonomic research for the future Why do taxonomists matter? The work of taxonomists is often understated if not completely misunderstood. Without taxonomists, organisms cannot be accurately identified, neither can these organisms be given universally accepted names, and reliably positioned in the phylogenetic tree of life. Th...

Taxonomy plays an important role in understanding the origin, evolution, and ecological functionality of biodiversity. There are large number of unknown species yet to be described by taxonomists, which together with their ecosystem services cannot be effectively protected prior to description. Despite this, taxonomy has been increasingly underrat...

Two species of psocids discovered from the Mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, Latempheria kachinensis Li, Yoshizawa, and Yao, gen. et sp. nov. and Burmempheria curvatavena Li, Yoshizawa, and Yao, sp. nov., are described and assigned to the Empheriidae (Trogiomorpha: Atropetae) family. A phylogenetic analysis of the infraorder Atropetae is conducted base...

The scarabaeoid beetle Mesoceratocanthus from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation was originally placed in the extant tribe Ivieolini (Hybosoridae). Our re-examination of the holotype and a new specimen demonstrates that Mesoceratocanthus does not possess the diagnostic characters of Ivieolini or Hybosoridae. Instead, it should be assigned to the...

Among Scarabaeidae, the phytophagous scarab lineage including Melolonthinae, Cetoniinae, Dynastinae, and Rutelinae is considered important due to its members’ roles as agricultural pests or pollinators. In this study, the near-complete mitochondrial genomes of seven species from six genera in the phytophagous scarab lineage were newly sequenced: An...

We based the dataset in this paper on the beetle collection from the sample site of Tei Tong Tsai (Hong Kong) from 1 st May to 28 th May 2019, a period of high insect diversity. A total of 16,270 beetles (photographed in 318 images) from 478 species belonging to 39 families were collected. The dataset consists of the following components: The origi...

Incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) makes ancestral genetic polymorphisms persist during rapid speciation events, inducing incongruences between gene trees and species trees. ILS has complicated phylogenetic inference in many lineages, including hominids. However, we lack empirical evidence that ILS leads to incongruent phenotypic variation. Here, we...

The three weevil species, Sternochetus gravis, S. mangiferae, and S. olivieri, have all been reported to be serious pests of mango fruits. Morphology, biology, and various management approaches of these economically important weevils have been well studied. However, no mitochondrial genomes have been reported from the genus Sternochetus. Herein, we...

A new genus and species of Archaeatropidae, Longiantennum fashengi gen. et sp. nov., is described from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. This new genus is assigned to the family Archaeatropidae according to the following characters: forewing anterior margin strongly curved, pterostigma not thickened, forewing Sc developed and curved to R, forewing vein...

Tropical karst ecosystems are an exceptionally unique and important landscape element of South East (SE) Asia. Unfortunately, these ecosystems have been increasingly disturbed due to forest conversions to anthropogenic land uses, illegal logging, and limestone quarrying. Karst regions have a high degree of endemic species, so their loss is likely t...

The mid-Cretaceous genus Sanaungulus from northern Myanmar is revised based on a morphology-based phylogeny of the Burmite Cantharinae by both Maximum Parsimony and Maximum Likelihood analyses. The monophyly of Sanaungulus is supported and recovered sister to Burmomiles. The generic diagnosis is redefined based on the synapomorphies, of which the c...

Tenomerga trabecula belongs to the Cupedidae family of Coleoptera. The first complete mitogenome of Cupedidae is reported in this paper. The genome is 16,741 bp in length and contains the typical 37 genes with 22 transfer RNA genes, 13 protein-coding genes, and 2 ribosomal RNA genes, which are arranged in the same order as the putative ancestor of...

Many studies have found that the correlation between species richness (SR) and morphological diversity (MD) is positive, but the correlation degree of these parameters is not always consistent due to differences in categories and various ecological factors in the living environment. Based on this, related studies have revealed the good performance...

Limited photon flux from the specimen using laser scanning microscopy during very short pixel dwell time often leads to insufficient signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). Increasing the SNR is invariably accompanied with a high power density, which may cause thermal damage to valuable specimens, for instance, the amber fossil record which provides an unpar...

Ground-dwelling beetles are important functional components in nutrient-poor grasslands of middle temperate steppe ecosystems in China. Here, we assessed the changes in ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) communities in the grasslands of northwestern China over 12 years to improve the management and conservation of beetles all over the world. The...

Lichens are well known as pioneer organisms or stress-tolerant extremophiles playing a core role in the early formation of terrestrial ecosystems, of which epiphytic lichens make a distinct contribution to the water-cycle and nutrient cycling in forest ecosystem. But due to the scarcity of relevant fossil records, the evolutionary history of epiphy...

The genus †Burmomiles was reviewed. A morphological character of antennae is corrected for B. willerslevorum and B. blixenae; i.e. antennal branches are inserted in the ventrobasal cavities of antennomeres IV‒X, not in the apices of III‒IX. Three new species from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber are described and illustrated, B. oblongoculus sp. nov.,...

The decline of insect diversity has received widespread attention as a serious ecosystem problem worldwide. Accurately learning the driving factors of insect decline is difficult because of the complex multitrophic and environmental interactions involved. The scientific interpretation of the factors driving insect distribution is essential to under...

Background: Polygraphus poligraphus L., the four-eyed spruce bark beetle, belongs to the Curculionidae (Coleoptera), which mainly harms Picea asperata Mast and Pinus armandii Franch tree trunks. So far, there is no mitochondrial genome reported for P. poligraphus. Results: In this study, we sequenced and annotated the nearly complete mitogenome of...

Lichens are well known as pioneer organisms colonizing bare surfaces such as rocks and therefore have been hypothesized to play a role in the early formation of terrestrial ecosystems. Given the rarity of fossil evidence, our understanding of the evolutionary history of lichen-forming fungi is primarily based on molecular dating approaches. These s...

In the present study the taxonomy of the species of the genus Trioserica Moser, 1922 from China is revised. We recorded so far six valid species, of which five resulted to be new to science: Trioserica cangyuanensis Ahrens, Liu & Fabrizi, new species, T. daweishana Ahrens, Liu & Fabrizi, new species, T. dinghushanica Ahrens, Liu & Fabrizi, new spec...

A new species of the genus Miridiba Reitter, 1902 from Hainan Island of China is described and illustrated: Miridiba hani Gao, new species. A key to the species of the genus Miridiba known in Hainan Island is provided. A new combination is proposed: Miridiba longiuscula (Moser, 1909), new combination.

Four complete mitogenomes of Eysarcoris rosaceus, E. montivagus, E. gibbosus, E. annamita and one near-complete mitochondrial genome of E. ventralis were sequenced and used to explore the phylogenetic relationships of tribes within the subfamily Pentatominae. The mitogenomes range from 15,422 to 16,043 base pairs (bp) in length and encode 37 genes,...

The family Erotylidae belongs to the superfamily Cucujoidea, which are phytophagous and mycophagous. So far, only two representative complete mitochondrial (mt) genomes of Erotylidae have been sequenced. Mitochondrial genomes of Tritoma metasobrina, Neotriplax arisana, and Episcapha opaca, which all belong to the subfamily Erotylinae, were sequence...

Beetles are key insect species in global biodiversity and play a significant role in steppe ecosystems. In the temperate steppe of China, the increasing degeneration of the grasslands threatens beetle species and their habitat. Using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs), we aimed to predict and map beetle richness patterns within the temperate steppe...

In the present monograph, the taxonomy of the species of the genus Maladera Mulsant & Rey, 1871 from China is revised. We recorded 224 valid species for China, including 152 species new to science: ...

The genus Airapus Stebnicka & Howden, 1996 currently comprises 26 extant species distributed in the Australian and Oriental zoogeographical regions (Stebnicka & Howden 1996; Stebnicka 1998, 2009; Rakovič et al. 2019; Král et al. 2019; Minkina 2020) and one fossil species from the Eocene Baltic amber (Tamutis et al. 2017). Of the continental Southea...

A positive correlation between the species richness and morphological diversity of some organisms has been found in almost all studies at the local community scale. However, this documented relationship has not always been consistent because of diverse niches and the status of an organism in an ecosystem. Global taxon sampling, new morphological ap...

Correlation between the category richness (CR) and morphological diversity (MD) of some communities at a local scale was found pendent, however, examination of a whole category using a large dataset are lacking. In this study, 1119 jewel species from around the world representing all existing subfamilies and 33.78% of Buprestidae genera were select...

Key changes in ecological niche space are often critical to understanding how lineages diversify during adaptive radiations. However, the converse, or understanding why some lineages are depauperate and relictual, is more challenging, as many factors may constrain niche evolution. In the case of the insect order Grylloblattodea, highly conserved th...