Phylogeny of the climber genus Haumania (Marantaceae) endemic to the tropical lowland rainforest in Central Africa

Hemorrhagic fevers represent a wide spectrum of viral infectious diseases, out-breaking mostly as epidemics, some of them being highly lethal. They range from those caused by bunyaviridae, associated with renal or pulmonary syndromes and those recently emerging and caused by the filoviridae family of thread-like viruses. Among the latter, Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) bears the highest mortality and morbidity rates. One form of the disease has been documented only in monkeys. The human form, has occurred mainly in areas surrounding rain forests in central Africa. Patients present with signs of hemorrhagic diathesis, fever, diarrhea and neurological disorders, leading sometimes to confusion with local endemic diseases. Fatal victims of the disease die of dehydration. Poor hygienic conditions facilitate the spread of the virus. Biologically, the virus seems to target both the host blood coagulative and immune defense systems. Intensive epidemiologic search have failed to establish the definitive natural host of the virus. Twice, with a 19-year interval, major outbreaks have taken place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The second major outbreak in the northwestern city of Kikwit in April 1995 will serve here to elucidate the mechanism of the viral infection.

A multigene framework for polychaete phylogenetic studies

A new sequestrate Lactarius species was found in a humid evergreen tropical rainforest dominated by Fabaceae of the subfamily Caesalpinioideae in Cameroon, Central Africa. It is described here as new to science and is named Lactarius megalopterus, referring to its spore ornamentation of extraordinarily high wings. Anatomical characters and molecular systematic analyses confirm its relationship to Lactarius subgenus Plinthogali. Phylogenetic analyses based on two nuclear DNA regions revealed its close relationship to Lactarius angiocarpus, which is also an angiocarpous species from Zambia in Africa. Molecular studies have shown that tuber-like, sequestrate sporocarps evolved independently in several lineages of Basidiomycota. The findings of sequestrate fungi in tropical rainforests raise questions regarding the evolutionary benefit of enclosing the spore-producing hymenium. The enclosure of spore-producing tissue has often been associated with the protection of the delicate hymenium against desiccation in arid habitats or against frost in cold habitats. However, these cannot be the selective factors in warm and humid areas like the tropics. This controversy is exemplarily studied and discussed in the family of Russulaceae, especially in the genus Lactarius. Characters shown by the angiocarpous sporocarp of the new Lactarius, such as thick-walled statismospores, an aromatic smell and mild taste, can be interpreted as adaptations to endozoochorous spore dispersal by mammals. Therefore, here we prefer the alternative hypothesis that sequestrate sporocarps are the result of adaptation to endozoochorous spore dispersal.

Partial DNA sequence data from the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome oxidase I and II genes were used to construct a molecular phylogeny based on representative species from 10 of the 20 genera of Sesiidae. Maximum likelihood, maximum parsimony, and Bayesian analysis were utilized. Sequencing of a 606-base pair region of the mtDNA cytochrome oxidase I (COI), tRNA leucine, and COII gene revealed 271 polymorphic sites among 20 species. Genetic variation ranged from 0.8 to 21.2% among species. Maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian analysis do not support the recent synonmy of Synansphecia as Pyropteran. Maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood support the recent divergence of Synanthedon pamphyla from Synanthedon culciformis, which are almost identical morphologicaly. Maximum likelihood, parsimony, and Bayesian analysis do not support the inclusion of Melittia cucurbitae in the Sesiinae subfamily. All analysis support Synanthedon included in the Sesiinae subfamily. All analysis also give support for Vitacea and Paranthrene forming the subfamily Paranthrenini. This is the first attempt to resolve relationships within Sesiidae with molecular data. Sesiidae are a divergent order of Lepidoptera in which many relationships should be examined more closely. Future studies should investigate nucleur markers to further support relationships supported by molecular data.

On the basis of ethnobiological field work among the Aka Pygmies of the Lobaye rain forest in Central Africa, the author considers the problem of ecological constraints in the case of the societies living in the tropical rain forest.

Emissions of nitrogen oxides from equatorial rain forest in central Africa:. origin and regulation of NO emission from soils

Emissions of nitric oxide from soils of equatorial rain forest were measured in the Dimonika Natural Park (4°30′S, 12°30′E) in the Mayombe Forest in Congo. Three research campaigns were carried out in June and July 1991 and in February 1992. Fluxes were measured by dynamic chamber techniques using a chemiluminescence instrument Scintrex LMA3. NO fluxes measured on natural soils are in between 5 and 17 × 10 9 molecules cm -2 s -1 ; they are of the same order of magnitude as those observed in similar tropical forest media. Soil treatment experiments show that the auto-decomposition of HNO 2 in these acid soils (pH# 4) (chemodenitrification) is a potentially important cause of nitric oxide production in this type of ecosystem. Nitrous acid comes from autotrophic nitrification all the year round, and also from biological denitrification, shown by N 2 0 emissions, during the rainy season. The regulation of NO release from soils is linked to ammonia production from litter mineralisation and to direct NH 4 input by throughfall. DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0889.1994.t01-3-00001.x

African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) live in tropical rainforests in Central Africa and often use low-frequency vocalizations for long-distance communication and coordination of group activities. There is great interest in monitoring population size in this species; however, the dense rainforest canopy severely limits visibility, making it difficult to estimate abundance using traditional methods such as aerial surveys. Passive acoustic monitoring offers an alternative approach of estimating its abundance in a low visibility environment. The work we present here can be divided into three steps. First, we apply an automatic elephant call detector, which enables the processing of large-scale acoustic signals in a reasonable amount of time. Second, we apply a density estimation method we designed for a single microphone. Because microphones are often positioned far apart in order to cover a large area in the rainforest, meaning that the same call will not produce multiple arrivals on different recording units. Lastly, we examine results from our historic data across five years in six locations in central Africa, which includes over 1000 days of sound stream. We will address the feasibility of long-term population monitoring and also the potential impact of human activity on elephant calling behavior.

In temperate regions the chemistry of the lower troposphere is known to be significantly affected by biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by plants. The chemistry of the lower troposphere over the tropics, however, is poorly understood, in part because of the considerable uncertainties in VOC emissions from tropical ecosystems. Present global VOC models predict that base emissions of isoprene from tropical rainforests are considerably higher than from savannas. These global models of VOC emissions which rely mainly on species inventories are useful, but significant improvement might be made with more ecologically based models of VOC emissions by plants. Ecosystems along a successional transect from woodland savanna to primary rainforest in central Africa were characterized for species composition and vegetation abundance using ground surveys and remotely sensed data. A total of 336 species (mostly trees) at 13 sites were recorded, and 208 of these were measured for VOC emissions at near‐optimal light and temperature conditions using a leaf cuvette and hand‐held photoionization detector (PID). A subset of 59 species was also sampled using conventional VOC emission techniques in order to validate the PID technique. Results of ecological and VOC emission surveys indicate both phylogenetic and successional patterns along the savanna‐rainforest transect. Genera and families of trees which tend to emit isoprene include Lophira, Irvingia, Albizia, Artocarpus, Ficus, Pterocarpus, Caesalpiniaceae, Arecaceae, and Moraceae. Other taxa tend to contain stored VOCs (Annonaceae and Asteraceae). Successional patterns suggest that isoprene emissions are highest in the relatively early successional Isoberlinia forest communities and progressively decrease in the later successional secondary and primary rainforest communities. Stored VOCs appear to increase along the savanna‐rainforest succession, but these data are more tentative. These findings are consistent with successional patterns of isoprene and terpene fluxes in North American forests and highlight the feasibility of constructing better predictive models of VOC emissions.

Conservation of tropical rainforests, with their rich biological diversity and high potentials for carbon sequestration, has become a major global issue. While Cameroon has witnessed an increase in the number of protected areas in the southeastern part of the country during the past 15 years, this has resulted in the restriction of access of local people to the forest. Since the new forest law in 1994, most parts of the forest in Cameroon have been divided either into protected areas, or forest management units subject to current or future logging operations. There is a growing conflict between the global issue of conservation and the interest of the local people in their livelihood. The Scientific and Technological Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), a Japanese overseas cooperation project, addresses this issue through establishing a sustainable use of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) among the local people, which is compatible with the conservation of tropical forest. In this paper, the outline of the SATREPS project is described, and some of the interim outputs from the Projects are presented.

The monophyly of Boronia (Rutaceae) was tested using 134 accessions of 120 species belonging to 39 genera from subfamily Amyridoideae. Taxa included representatives of all eight sections of Boronia plus species of most genera in the two main clades related to Boronia that had been identified by earlier studies. These samples included a good representation of genera from both rainforest and sclerophyllous biomes. Maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference analyses were performed using three plastid markers (psbA‐trnH, trnL‐trnF, rbcL) and two nuclear ribosomal markers (ITS, ETS). Separate analyses of plastid and nuclear sequences using either maximum parsimony or Bayesian inference analyses recovered similar topologies. Apart from Boronia, the broad generic relationships of previous analyses were largely supported. Boronia is polyphyletic with section Cyanothamnus being more closely related to a large clade containing genera found in rainforest, including Melicope, Acronychia and their relatives. The remaining seven sections of Boronia formed a strongly supported and isolated group. Boronia sensu stricto is sister to a clade containing the Cyanothamnus‐Melicope‐Acronychia clade plus a clade containing Euodia, Zieria and other small genera found in rainforest or sclerophyllous communities. Issues with circumscriptions of ingroups and outgroups for previous analyses of Boronia and the complex relationship between Australasian genera found in rainforest and sclerophyllous communities are both discussed. Cyanothamnus is reinstated at generic level. Appropriate nomenclatural changes are made to transfer all currently recognised series, species, subspecies and varieties of Boronia sect. Cyanothamnus to the genus Cyanothamnus.

Phylogenetic relationships, diversification and expansion of chili peppers (Capsicum, Solanaceae).

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a complex zoonosis that is highly virulent in humans. The largest recorded outbreak of EVD is ongoing in West Africa, outside of its previously reported and predicted niche. We assembled location data on all recorded zoonotic transmission to humans and Ebola virus infection in bats and primates (1976–2014). Using species distribution models, these occurrence data were paired with environmental covariates to predict a zoonotic transmission niche covering 22 countries across Central and West Africa. Vegetation, elevation, temperature, evapotranspiration, and suspected reservoir bat distributions define this relationship. At-risk areas are inhabited by 22 million people; however, the rarity of human outbreaks emphasises the very low probability of transmission to humans. Increasing population sizes and international connectivity by air since the first detection of EVD in 1976 suggest that the dynamics of human-to-human secondary transmission in contemporary outbreaks will be very different to those of the past.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04395.001

We summarize knowledge of the weevil tribe Cleonini worldwide, including its monophyly, relationships, distribution, biology, immature stages, economic significance and paleontology. We score adult morphological characters for 79 of a total of 96 extant genus-group Cleonini taxa considered valid to date. The resulting matrix contains 121 parsimoniously informative characters scored for 145 ingroup (Cleonini) and 29 outgroup terminals. Maximum Parsimony (MP) and Bayesian Inference (BI) analyses consistently recover monophyletic Lixinae and Cleonini. Relationships within the latter remain unresolved with either 47 (BI) or 37 (MP) branches radiating from the tribe's most recent common ancestor. Most of the speciose genera of Cleonini emerge as monophyletic in both BI and MP analyses (generic names followed by the number of terminals, then by BI posterior probability / MP bootstrap): Adosomus (5, 94/77), Asproparthenis (6, 99/98), Chromonotus (6, 98/85), Cleonis (3, 64/76), Coniocleonus (10, 95/41), Conorhynchus (5, 95/51), Cyphoclenus (4, 65/76), Maximus (4, 84/68), Mecaspis (4, 95/91), Scaphomorphus (4, 90/84), Temnorhinus (8, 99/62) and Xanthochelus (6, 84/71). The genera Pseudocleonus (6, -/26) and Stephanocleonus (22, -/23) are not recovered in BI and weakly supported in MP. No genera are here added to, or removed from, Cleonini. We suggest that adult morphology of Cleonini was subject to widespread homoplasy obscuring the phylogenetic signal of morphological characters. Unlike the rest of Lixinae, all extant Cleonini are hypothesised to be flightless, even though often being macropterous. All 145 ingroup terminals are illustrated in three standard views; images of the type species of 15 of the 17 genus-group taxa that are not represented in our analysis are provided.

Hantaviruses are members of the Bunyaviridae family carried by small mammals and causing human hemorrhagic fevers worldwide. In Western Africa, where a variety of hemorrhagic fever viruses occurs, indigenous hantaviruses have been molecularly found in animal reservoirs such as rodents, shrews, and bats since 2006. To investigate the human contact to hantaviruses carried by these hosts and to assess the public health relevance of hantaviruses for humans living in the tropical rainforest regions of Western and Central Africa, we performed a cross-sectional seroprevalence study in the region of Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire and the Bandundu region near the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic (DR) of Congo. Serum samples were initially screened with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays using nucleoproteins of several hantaviruses as diagnostic antigens. Positive results were confirmed by Western blotting and immunofluorescence testing. Seroprevalence rates of 3.9% (27/687) and 2.4% (7/295), respectively, were found in the investigated regions in Côte d’Ivoire and the DR Congo. In Côte d’Ivoire, this value was significantly higher than the seroprevalence rates previously reported from the neighboring country Guinea as well as from South Africa. Our study indicates an exposure of humans to hantaviruses in West and Central African tropical rainforest areas. In order to pinpoint the possible existence and frequency of clinical disease caused by hantaviruses in this region of the world, systematic investigations of patients with fever and renal or respiratory symptoms are required.