Zhi-Qiang Zhang

• Merck & Co.

This study explores the factors influencing larval prey consumption in the facultative-feeding predatory mite Amblydromalus limonicus (Garman and McGregor) (Acari: Mesostigmata), an important species in biological control systems. While feeding is not essential for larval development into protonymphs, understanding the factors that modulate larval...

The six-spotted spider mite, Eotetranychus sexmaculatus (Riley) (Acari: Tetranychidae), is a severe pest of avocado trees, causing excessive leaf drop and reduced yield. Two predators found to be sympatric with E. sexmaculatus in surveys, Amblydromalus limonicus (Garman & McGregor) and Amblyseius herbicolus (Chant) (Acari: Phytoseiidae), may serve...

The balance between mating benefits and costs shapes reproductive strategies and life history traits across animal species. For biological control programs, understanding how mating rates influence life history traits is essential for optimising population management and enhancing predator efficacy. This study investigates the impact of mating oppo...

The historical background for founding Palaeoentomology was already discussed in Azar et al. (2018) and some bibliometric data were summarized in Zhang (2023). Here we share further details and our experiences in the early days during the founding of this journal in the hope that these may benefit other professional societies who may wish to develo...

BACKGROUND Phototactic behavior and oviposition site selection in phytoseiid predators are crucial for understanding their ecological interactions and optimizing their use in agricultural pest management. This study investigated the phototactic responses and oviposition preferences of seven phytoseiid species of proven or potential importance in bi...

Negative relationships between the parental age and offspring life history traits have been widely observed across diverse animal taxa. However, there is a lack of studies examining the influence of parental age on offspring performance using mites, particularly phytoseiid predators as subjects. This study explored the influence of maternal age on...

The Nomenclature Section of the XX International Botanical Congress (IBC) was held from 15 to 19 July 2024, with 173 registered delegates in Madrid plus 219 additional attendees participating online (Gostel et al. 2014). It deliberated 433 proposals to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Turland et al. 2018, t...

The nutritional status of an individual can significantly influence its life history traits, including development, growth, reproduction, and survival. In the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias-Henriot (Acari: Phytoseiidae), the plasticity of life history traits, such as developmental time and size at maturity, is influenced by the quali...

Achalinus sheni Ma, Xu, Qi, Wang, Tang, Huang & Jiang, 2023 was originally described based on only male specimens from Lianyuan City and Nanyue District, Hunan, China. So far, no information on the females of this species is available. After molecular systematics and morphological characters of recently collected specimens from Xinshao County, Huna...

Parasitengona (velvet mites, chiggers and water mites) is a highly diverse and globally distributed mite lineage encompassing over 11,000 described species, inhabiting terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats. Certain species, such as chiggers (Trombiculidae), have a great medical and veterinary importance as they feed on their vertebrate hosts...

The social-sexual environment is well known for its influence on the survival of organisms by modulating their reproductive output. However, whether it affects survival indirectly through a variety of cues without physical contact and its influence relative to direct interaction remain largely unknown. In this study, we investigated both the indire...

Parasitengona is a diverse group of Prostigmata, including mites with life cycles that include important morphological changes between larva and deutonymph, an evolutionary novelty not shared by its closely related taxa (Halacaridae, Pezidade or Anystidae). Allotanaupodoidea is a superfamily of Parasitengona, known solely by the post-larval instars...

In this study we delved into the effects of royal jelly supplementation on the life history traits of Amblyseius herbicolus, a thelytokous predatory mite with potential in biological pest control. Royal jelly, a nutrient-rich substance from honeybees, is known for its diverse biological activities in various species. Our experiments showed the conc...

This study contributes to the extensive history of research on the family Phytoseiidae in New Zealand, covering nearly a century. We examined phytoseiid specimens in the major repositories, unveiling fifteen species new to New Zealand: Amblyseius andersoni (Chant), A. waltersi Schicha, A. williamsi Schicha, Australiseiulus australicus (Womersley),...

A new species of xenodermid snake, Achalinus nanshanensis H. Li, L.-Q. Zhu, Z.-Q. Zhang & X.-Y. Mo, sp. nov. , is described based on three specimens collected from Nanshan National Park and Tongdao County of southwest Hunan Province. This new species is genetically distinct amongst its congeners with the mitochondrial COI uncorrected p -distance ra...

Environmental influences experienced by organisms are known to influence the phenotype of offspring through transgenerational plasticity or parental effects, and recent studies have revealed the significance of diet stress experienced by parents in shaping the life course of their progeny. In this laboratory study using a predatory mite, Phytoseiul...

Biotaxa.org is a non-profit international collaboration among professional societies, institutions, publishers, natural history museums and libraries for facilitating the publication, enhancing the access and enabling the preservation of journals in biological taxonomy. Since the start of Biotaxa.org in 2013, 58 journals by 46 publishers from 23 co...

Megataxa was founded in January 2020 as a sister journal of the two most important journals in taxonomy, Zootaxa and Phytotaxa, with similar goals to accelerate the documentation of undescribed species and promote the development of global taxonomy, but aims to be a premium journal for most important works in taxonomy. Megataxa has grown steadily s...

The genus Typhlodromina (Acari: Phytoseiidae) comprises six species worldwide. Three of them were previously recorded in New Zealand. During our studies of the phytoseiid mites, notable misidentifications were found in mite collections within New Zealand. This paper aims to rectify the taxonomic uncertainties associated with this genus in the count...

The 16th International Congress of Acarology was successfully conducted from December 1 to 5, 2022, at the Owen G. Glenn Building, The University of Auckland, in Auckland, New Zealand. The event saw a total of 259 attendees from 32 different countries or regions, with two-thirds of them participating virtually. Besides the opening and closing cerem...

Diet and social experience during development can have profound influences on the fitness of individuals and subsequently affect population dynamics. Understanding the factors driving population size is fundamental to ecological studies and pest management. In this study, we investigated the interplay between diet-induced plasticity, cannibalism, s...

Taxonomic data are a scientific common. Unlike nomenclature, which has strong governance institutions, there are currently no generally accepted governance institutions for the compilation of taxonomic data into an accepted global list. This gap results in challenges for conservation, ecological research, policymaking, international trade, and othe...

Modern advances in DNA sequencing hold the promise of facilitating descriptions of new organisms at ever finer precision but have come with challenges as the major Codes of bionomenclature contain poorly defined requirements for species and subspecies diagnoses (henceforth, species diagnoses), which is particularly problematic for DNA-based taxonom...

This paper reports the results of our studies of the morphological ontogeny of Neoseiulus cucumeris (Oudemans) based primarily on specimens reared in a laboratory at Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, Auckland, New Zealand. We describe all postembryonic stages and illustrate them in detail: the larva, protonymph, deutonymph (male and female), and...

A new opinion piece published in Megataxa today (Conix et al. 2023) calls for preregistration in the field of taxonomy and discusses its potential benefits and objections. Preregistration is a practice for researchers to document their hypotheses, design and methods of their proposed studies in a public repository before they start the study and co...

Neonidulus falsicornus (Zhang & Martin) is redescribed based on six females, three males, two deutonymphs, two protonymphs and four larvae from New Zealand. We also discussed its ontogenetic development, especially those of leg chaetotaxy.

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of individual organisms to alter their phenotypes to persist in response to internal states or changing environments. Like many other organisms, the specialist predatory mite, Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias-Henriot (Acari: Phytoseiidae), showed plasticity in developmental time and size at maturity under food str...

Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias-Henriot is an important biocontrol agent for controlling spider mites (Tetranychus spp). Rearing P. persimilis is relatively expensive due to the need to raise spider mites (e.g. Tetranychus urticae Koch), as prey, on live plants. Frozen eggs of T. urticae can be easily stored and used as a potential feed for laborato...

Water-and-mud inrush disasters have become a major challenge in underground engineering for the construction of tunnels in sandstone and slate interbedded Presinian strata. Disaster prediction and prevention rely in part on realistic modeling and observation of the disaster process, as well as the identification and examination of the underlying me...

Blattisocius dendriticus (Acari: Blattisociidae) is a predatory gamasid mite with the potential for the biological control of mites attacking stored products. However, its interactions with its cannibalistic conspecifics are poorly understood. In this study, we determined the effects of predation risk from cannibalistic conspecifics on the survival...

Phytoseiidae is the most common and widespread mite family inhabiting plants all over the world. This review investigated the development time, longevity, and lifespan of the species in Phytoseiidae based on literature published from 1968 to 2022. We found 132 references including 571 datasets in 57 species of 12 genera, with a focus on sex-specifi...

This index includes only speakers in oral or poster presentations. The authors are listed by family names alphabetically.

Predators can affect prey both directly through consumption and indirectly through non-consumptive effects such as predation risk. The latter has been less studied than consumptive effects in predator-prey interactions, although many studies have shown that non-consumptive effects could significantly affect various life history traits of the prey (...

Different species not only can compete with each other for food and space but also prey on competitors. Intraguild predation is where individuals prey on other competing species. Nevertheless, intraguild predation may cause adverse influence between biocontrol agents targeting the same pest. The generalist predator Blattisocius dentriticus recently...

This is the second part of a survey of mite lifespans initiated last year (Zhang & Fan 2021). This series was launched to collect information on lifespan and related data across mite taxa, with the aim to stimulate more research on both the patterns and mechanisms of mite aging and lifespan (Zhang 2021). The first part covered lifespan and other li...

Kin recognition has been widely observed across the animal kingdom. Individuals discriminate and treat conspecifics differently in relation to their genetic relatedness to increase their inclusive fitness (i.e. their own reproductive success and that of their relatives) and to avoid adverse influences from inbreeding. Although most studies on kin r...

Cannibalism is commonly found among phytoseiids at almost all mobile life stages. The avoidance of kin cannibalism in the presence of non-kin has been observed in a limited number of phytoseiid species. However, studies examining kin recognition by individuals at different life stages are limited. Early experience with conspecifics can alter indivi...

Many animal species can recognise and discriminate conspecifics differing in their genetic relatedness. The discrimination of kin from non-kin or more distantly related kin can benefit individuals with increased inclusive fitness and avoid adverse influences from inbreeding. A preference by mothers to oviposit near their own or closely related eggs...

The non-consumptive effects of predator-induced stress can influence a variety of life-history traits. Many previous studies focused only on short-term effects such as development and reproductive rates. Recent studies have showed that long-term predation stress (given during the whole life of the prey) and short-term predation stress (provided dur...

Phenotypic plasticity is a mechanism where different phenotypes are expressed from a genotype allowing individuals to survive variable environments. Diet-induced phenotypic plasticity was observed in the developmental time and size at maturity of the specialist predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis. As a preliminary study, we investigated variatio...

Kin recognition has been widely observed in various taxa. Cannibalism avoidance may be a strong driver for the evolution of kin recognition, as it may avoid a reduction in inclusive fitness. Kin recognition has recently been observed in a generalist phytoseiid, Amblyseius herbicolus (Acari: Phytoseiidae). This study experimentally examined the degr...

The early-life experience is important in modulating the late-life performance of individuals. It has been predicted that there were trade-offs between early-life fitness and late-life success. Most of the studies on senescence have focused on the trade-offs between the reproduction and lifespan, and the influences of diet, mating, and other factor...

Cannibalism is commonly found among phytoseiids at almost all mobile life stages. The avoidance of kin cannibalism in the presence of non-kin has been observed in limited species of phytoseiids. Early experience with conspecifics can alter individuals’ social behaviour at later stages. In this study, we examined the influence of ontogenetic isolati...

In predator–prey interactions, non-consumptive effects of predators have been less studied than consumptive effects. However, non-consumptive effects may have significant influences on prey and can change different aspects of their life history such as development, reproduction and lifespan. The odour and other cues associated with a predator, with...

Predator-prey interactions are fundamental to the understanding of ecological communities. The non-consumptive effects of predators on the food web can be more prominent than direct killing. However, the non-consumptive effects in intraguild interaction have rarely been studied. This study determined the non-consumptive effects of an intraguild pre...

Cannibalism is a commonly found behaviour in the animal kingdom. The biggest concern of cannibalism is that it reduces the inclusive fitness of the cannibals by eliminating close relatives. Kin recognition is a strategy used by many cannibals to benefit from cannibalism without the cost of reducing their inclusive fitness by eating close relatives....

The Anystidae are a family of over 100 species of predatory mites commonly seen in soils and on plants worldwide. A few species of genus Anystis have potential as biocontrol agents against some insect and mite pests. Herein I provide a review of the lifespan of the Anystidae as part of a series on the lifespans in the Acari. The full life cycle in...

How long do animals live and why are some long-lived whereas others short-lived? These questions have long fascinated scholars, including Aristotle. Incidentally, it is also Aristotle who first named mites “Acari” according to new research on the Greek origin of acarology by Zaborowski & Daszkiewicz (2017)

The Winterschmidtiidae are a family of over 140 species of fungivorous, saprophagous, predatory and/or parasitic mites in insect/vertebrate nests, in decaying organic matter, in soils and on plants worldwide. In this review, I provide a survey of the immature developmental time, adult longevity and lifespan of the Winterschmidtiidae as part of the...

Alternative food sources could sustain predator populations by influencing their performances including predation, development, and reproduction in periods of shortage or scarcity of prey under laboratory or fields conditions. The aim of this study was to explore suitability of cattail pollen (Typha orientalis) as an alternative food source for dif...

Leaf stomata are channels for plants to exchange water vapor that affecting transpiration and photosynthesis. However, leaf stomatal behaviors are affected by environmental conditions and tree species, and the differences in the respones of canopy stomatal conductance to environmental factors between different tree species and whether the stomatal...

Being generalist predators makes many members of the Phytoseiidae family a more favourable choice for biocontrol. Amblyseius herbicolus, a predator of several phytophagous pest mites and insects, has recently gained focus as an important biocontrol agent. Most studies focus on providing alternative food such as pollens as a way to increase their pe...

Small-scale (1:30) model tests were performed to investigate the failure modes of highway tunnels that have single voids with different scales immediately above the lining roof. The tunnels employed have horseshoe-shaped cross-sections which match those typically used to carry two lanes of traffic. In the absence of a void, the mechanical behavior...

At present, substantial scientific research achievements have been made in the research on landslide occurrence, movement mechanism, mitigation measures, and structural stability during tunnel excavation. However, the interaction mechanism of a tunnel under-traversing a slope body with potential landslides is still not well understood. Based on the...

钢筋混凝土结构中, 钢筋锈蚀会产生2~6倍于自身的锈蚀产物, 对周围混凝土产生压力进而导致混凝土开裂。因此研究钢筋混凝土结构锈胀开裂对提升其耐久性具有重要意义。本文旨在研究钢筋混凝土锈胀开裂过程, 并探究均匀锈蚀下不同因素对锈胀裂缝形态和保护层脱落模式的影响。 1. 采用更接近实际的带肋钢筋;2. 考虑骨料与砂浆间界面过渡区(ITZ)的力学行为;3. 提出一种基于椭球体生成的单个不规则十二面体骨料及相应骨料库的生成、投放思路, 并在此基础上对ABAQUS进行二次开发, 构建一种基于已划分网格的直接生成三维实体的细观模型建立方法。 1. 通过ABAQUS的二次开发建立骨料库的生成及投放方法;2. 通过ABAQUS的二次开发, 采用Cohesive单元模拟ITZ的力学行为;3. 通过上述方法构建...

A consensus among biologists has been growing in recent years for the development of a global list of accepted species (and other taxa). To date, much discussion has focused on visions for how such a list would benefit many scientific and societal disciplines. Less emphasis has been placed on understanding the many technical challenges of compiling...

The original description of Scheloribates crassus Hammer, 1967 was incomplete, lacking information and figures about some morphological structures. Our specimens of S. crassus match broadly with the original description of the type specimens. However, there are the following differences: the morphological structures of leg I–II, the number of saccu...

Species lists are widely used in legislation and regulation to manage and conserve biodiversity. In this paper, we explore the issues caused by the lack of an adequately governed and universally accepted list of the world's species. These include lack of quality control, duplicated effort, conflicts of interest, lack of currency, and confusion in t...

Governance is the act of governing or organizing, that is a system of rules, norms, or shared strategies to guide or regulate the actions of the governed. Since the initial development of Linnaean taxonomy, a diversity of approaches have been adopted for critical taxonomic decisions, introducing pluralism to taxonomic principles and resulting in di...

On the occasion of the 5000th volume of Zootaxa, I herein provide the publication dates, page numbers and frequencies of all volumes/issues published in Zootaxa in one publication. The growth and development of Zootaxa are divided into three periods. The First Period (Explosive Growth) covers the first four years (Zootaxa 1 to 1,000) when each pape...

Taxonomy—the delimitation, naming, classification and documentation of species and other taxa—is an often-misunderstood discipline. Complex and at times contested, taxonomy occupies a sometimes discomforting intermediate position on a continuum from descriptive to hypothetico-deductive science. Two aspects of taxonomy that are striking to many obse...

A global consensus list of the world’s species must be based on the best available taxonomic research, and its contents should not be biased towards certain political or social aims. At the same time, users of any global list must be involved or consulted in its establishment to ensure that the list meets their needs. This paper argues that while t...

Sex dimorphism is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom and can be influenced by environmental factors. However, relatively little is known about how the degree and direction of sex difference vary with environmental factors, including food quality and temperature. With the spider mites from the family Tetranychidae as subjects, the sex difference of li...

Numerous experimental life history studies on ageing are mainly biased on two classical models—fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (Meigen) and nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (Maupas)—with relatively little attention given to other organisms with different life-history characters. Two-spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychida...

The ’All genera of the world’ series was announced by Zhang (2020) when Megataxa was launched. It aims to publish a full list of all genera (living and fossil) in a current consensus classification, including species richness, type species, and synonyms/homonyms (if any) for each genus. Original references for the generic names, type species, and n...

We present a summary and analysis of the Diptera-related information published in Zootaxa from 2001 to 2020, with a focus on taxonomic papers. Altogether, 2,527 papers on Diptera were published, including 2,032 taxonomic papers and 1,931 papers containing new nomenclatural acts, equivalent to 22% of all publications with new nomenclatural acts for...

On the 20th anniversary of Zootaxa, I herein provide an overview of its development and contributions over the last two decades (2001 to 2020) and an introduction to this special volume of 25 collected papers in celebration. Zootaxa published over 29,400 papers (including 1,499 monographs of 60 or more pages) by more than 28,000 authors in over 585...