West Indian Islands Research Articles

Moss-inhabiting beetles of the West Indies (Insecta: Coleoptera)

This study is the first attempt to assess the diversity of beetles (Coleoptera) in terrestrial moss cushions on three West Indian islands (Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico) based on 10 years of moss sampling in 18 localities. In total 1711 adult beetles were collected. They belong to 234 species from 30 families. The most species and specimen rich families are Staphylinidae (86 morphospecies and 1195 specimens), Curculionidae (61 morphospecies and 131 specimens), and Chrysomelidae (16 morphospecies and 185 specimens). In addition to basic bryobionts feeding on moss tissues, moss cushions host a diverse fauna of mycophagous and saprophagous Coleoptera together with predaceous species of beetles. Our results suggest that community composition in moss inhabiting beetles is determined both by geographical isolation processes and, to a lesser degree, by environmental variation across altitudinal gradients. This confirms that the greater relevance of geographical isolation is a common pattern in organisms with limited dispersal ability. Beetle abundance was not significantly related to either the volume of moss or the substrate. Despite being not significant (but close to), the observed trend was to higher beetle abundance in moss cushions collected on trees than in those collected on soil/rock. This may be resulting from the greater diversity of fungi and higher number of beetle fungivores associated with tree growing moss communities.

New-World Spread of the Old-World Robust Crazy Ant, Nylanderia bourbonica (Forel) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

The robust crazy ant, Nylanderia bourbonica (Forel) (formerly Paratrechina bourbonica), is native to the Old-World tropics and subtropics. Its earliest known record in the New World was collected in 1924 in Miami, Florida. Here, I examine the subsequent spread of this species to other parts of North America and the West Indies. I compiled published and unpublished New World N. bourbonica specimen records from 446 sites, documenting the earliest known records for 24 geographic areas (countries, island groups, major islands, and US states), including nine for which I found no previously published records: Anguilla, Antigua, Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos Islands, Missouri, New York, and Washington. The vast majority of New World site records for N. bourbonica (89%) come from Florida, where this species is now known from 37 counties. Most, if not all, of the 14 site records of N. bourbonica in North American north of 30.5°N come from indoors. Although the earliest record of N. bourbonica from Cuba dates to 1933, the spread of N. bourbonica to many West Indian islands appears to be much more recent. In Florida, N. bourbonica is a widespread, though relatively minor household and agricultural pest, and also is common in some more natural environments. It remains to be seen whether N. bourbonica will become a significant pest in the West Indies or elsewhere in the New World.

Drymaeus virgulatus, an extirpated land snail species on Saint Kitts and Tintamarre islands

The land snail species Drymaeus virgulatus (Férussac, 1821) is recorded in St. Kitts in the form of 21 complete or fragmented shells collected on the island in November 2019. The complete shells were collected on the backshores of South Frigate Bay and Majors Bay, while shell fragments come from naturally exposed sections of the North Frigate Bay sand ridge, where they date to the pre-Columbian period. This evidence therefore attests to the past presence of this species on the island. The absence of this taxon from recent malacological surveys points to it having been extirpated from St. Kitts. Apertural fragments of a large bulimulidae collected in the caves of Tintamarre Island, near St. Martin, are also related to this taxon, adding a second West Indian island from which this species apparently disappeared in recent centuries.

Worldwide distribution of Syllophopsis subcoeca (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), an Old-World species long known only from the West Indies

ABSTRACT Syllophopsis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) is a taxonomically difficult and possibly polyphyletic genus of tiny, inconspicuous ants. Syllophopsis subcoeca (Emery) was described in 1894 from St Thomas, US Virgin Islands. This remained the sole published record of S. subcoeca for more than 100 years. Here, we present new descriptions of the worker and queen castes, and document a greatly expanded known geographic distribution of S. subcoeca in both the New World and the Old World. We compiled published and unpublished S. subcoeca specimen records from 67 sites. These include 59 New World sites on 12 West Indian islands (Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Nevis, St Croix, St John, St. Kitts, St Lucia, Tortola and Trinidad) and in southern Florida. In addition, we report records of S. subcoeca from eight Old World sites, in Singapore and on two islands of the Northern Mariana Islands (Tinian and Saipan). Published records of Syllophopsis cf. subcoeca from Australia, Christmas Island and Sri Lanka are probably true S. subcoeca. All other Syllophopsis species appear to have originated in the Old World; therefore, the same is almost certainly true of S. subcoeca. It is likely that S. subcoeca was introduced to the West Indies and Florida through human commerce. Syllophopsis subcoeca appears to be a very recent arrival to Florida, where it is now known from nine sites in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. It remains to be seen whether S. subcoeca will become widespread in Florida. It seems unlikely that this S. subcoeca will become a significant ecological or agricultural pest.

Why Black Homeowners are More Likely to be Caribbean American than African American in New York: A Theory of How Early West Indian Migrants Broke Racial Cartels in Housing

Abstract Why are the Black brownstone owners and landlords in Harlem and Brooklyn disproportionately West Indian? For students of housing discrimination, Black West Indian Americans have long presented a quandary. West Indian Americans generally own and rent higher quality housing than African Americans. These advantages began long ago. For example, when racial covenants, that is, restrictions barring certain racial and ethnic groups from owning real property were rife in New York, many West Indians were still able to buy into tony neighborhoods despite the pervasiveness of institutionalized residential segregation. Eschewing more traditional explanations in the civil rights literature, I apply the literature in which racial segregation in real property ownership is conceived as a racialized monopoly in which racial cartels appropriate anti-competitive techniques to monopolize access to real property. Maintaining a racial cartel is dependent on White owners uniformly refusing to sell. Importantly, West Indian realtors were experts at finding defectors, namely Whites willing to break norms of racial exclusivity and sell, in exchange for their ability to extract a premium. West Indian brokers could act in confidence because they had cash-rich clients and were often buying property in trust (de facto if not de jure) for fellow West Indians. In so doing, West Indian brokers in New York were simply replicating techniques that had been utilized by their land-brokering ancestors. I discuss the history that “previews” this period in New York, albeit in a different context: in the British West Indian islands from which the migrants originated. There are repeated instances of Blacks “busting” White monopolies in landownership, throughout the West Indian colonies in contravention of racial norms in the British colonies of who was allowed to own land and where. Upon arrival in New York, West Indians encountered another racial monopoly in real property ownership, namely Northern racial segregation. They essentially transferred the same techniques that they had utilized in the West Indies to break into White neighborhoods in New York.

Arrowsmith Goes Native: Medicine and Empire in Fiction and Film

This essay examines how evolving perceptions of America's role as a world power in the interwar period affect representations of medical research and practice. It argues that Sinclair Lewis's novel Arrowsmith, and the film based on that novel, construct imperial role for the United States in their depictions of American scientific medicine. In recent years, scholars of American literature and culture have applied insights from the study of European colonial discourse to their analyses of American texts written during the heyday of empire. As Amy Kaplan notes in her introduction to the anthology Cultures of United States Imperialism, this investigation of the project of American empire seeks to correct the tendency to treat American expansionism as an entirely separate phenomenon from European colonization of the nineteenth century rather than interrelated form of imperial expansion (11). In a similar vein, historians of American medicine have begun to identify the influence of the racial ideologies of nineteenth-century European tropical medicine on American scientific medicine of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Works such as Warwick Anderson's Immunities of Empire have demonstrated that the transition from climatological to germ-based understandings of disease in American medicine did not change the imperial role played by medical researchers in tropical countries: in fact, new understandings of disease transmission resulted in calls for greater intervention into the lives of colonial subjects. Both these recent fields of postcolonial inquiry have begun to have effect on the study of the relationship between medicine and American literature, enabling new understandings of how American literature engages the vexed dynamic between medicine and empire. There has, however, been little examination of colonial rhetoric in perhaps the most well-known work of American literature focussed on medicine, Sinclair Lewis's 1925 novel, Arrowsmith. In what is clearly the most dramatic portion of the novel, Martin Arrowsmith journeys to the fictional West Indian island of St. Hubert to test the effectiveness of his newly developed plague vaccine. Martin succeeds in establishing a controlled experiment, but a series of events--including the death of Martin's wife from plague--lead him to sabotage his own work. By focussing on the collapse of Martin's greatest scientific project, the St. Hubert chapters of Arrowsmith call into question the novel's otherwise unflappable faith in scientific medicine, thus compromisi ng what medical historian Charles Rosenberg has described as the moral (47) of the novel. More than that, the ruined experiment seems specifically to represent the failure of Western reason in the tropics: there is a suggestion, in Arrowsmith, that Martin Arrowsmith goes at the end of his stay in St. Hubert. In this essay, which is a reading of Lewis's Arrowsmith as well as the 1931 film based on Lewis's novel, I argue that the West Indies episodes in both texts are best understood by examining how Arrowsmith positions itself in respect to contemporary debates about the international role of American scientific medicine. I begin by considering a paradox in the structure of the Lewis's St. Hubert chapters. The novel's description of St. Hubert--blighted by British colonial rule as well as by plague--establishes Martin, a scientist and American, as the hero the island desperately needs. However, Martin does not plan to save St. Hubert; rather, he wants to perfect a vaccine for future use. When Martin's experiment is performed on the black bodies of the island's native population, the novel is unable to contain the contradictions between narrative expectations and diagetic action: in a sense, the novel collapses at the same time as does Martin. After considering the implications of this collapse for the novel, I show how the film version of Arrowsmith replaces the tension between Martin's experiment and St. …

First North American Records of the Old-World Tramp Ant Syllophopsis sechellensis(Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Syllophopsis sechellensis (Emery) (formerly Monomorium sechellense) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) is a small, inconspicuous ant species native to the Old-World tropics. Syllophopsis sechellensis is widespread in Asia and Australia, and on islands the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans. In the New World, all published records come from West Indian islands. Here, I report the first records of S. sechellensis from North America: from four sites in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, Florida, more than 1500 km from the closest records in the West Indies. The ants of Florida have been well-studied in the past, so S. sechellensis appears to be a recent arrival.

A field study on the occurrence of gastrointestinal nematodes in sheep over the wet and dry seasons in two West Indian Islands.

Gastrointestinal nematode (GIN) infestations are a major constraint to sheep production in the West Indies (WI). Intensive and semi-intensive management systems are most commonly employed. These islands display tropical weather patterns with wet and dry seasons. Semi-intensive farming combined with increased rainfall during the wet season has been reported to be most favourable for development and survival of GIN. This study was conducted to determine whether there was a relationship between GIN burdens in sheep with seasonality and management practices of farmers in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). Farms were visited on a monthly basis from January to December 2017. A maximum of ten sheep, three to nine months of age, were selected from each farm. A total of 3,053 faecal samples were collected and analysed using the Modified McMaster technique. Environmental data on daily precipitation and temperature were collected from the Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Office during the period of sampling. A mixed effects negative binomial regression model was constructed to analyse the relationship between gastrointestinal nematode faecal egg counts (GINFEC) with season, management system and use of dewormers as fixed effects and farm as a random effect. Average diurnal temperatures of T&T fluctuated between 23.2°C to 32.6°C and 23.9°C to 32.3°C in the dry and wet seasons, respectively. Average daily precipitation ranged between 1.6-1.8mm and 6.1-8.5mm during the dry and wet seasons, respectively. A decreased risk of 0.34 (95% CI 0.25-0.47, p<.0001) for GINFEC was observed in dewormed animals versus not dewormed. Semi-intensive management systems experienced an increased risk of GINFEC by 1.39 (95% CI 1.05-1.84, p=.021) compared with intensive and the risk of GINFEC was reduced by 0.40 (95% CI 0.33-0.49, p<.0001) in the wet season versus the dry. A higher prevalence of GIN was observed during the drier months of the year. Climatic conditions observed in T&T remained favourable for GIN survival, development and distribution year-round. Proper management is therefore required for reducing the occurrence of GIN in sheep of T&T throughout the year. This is the first reported study in the WI on the influence of seasonality and management on GIN infestations in sheep during the dry and wet seasons. Further investigation is needed to elucidate why GIN burdens appear to be higher in the dry season than the wet season. This study can be used as a baseline for public education in T&T as well as other developing countries.

Quaternary development history of coral reefs from West Indian islands: a review

The Western Indian Ocean results from a complex geological history, implying both plate motion since about 180 million years and volcanic hot-spot activity since about 68 million years. This region exhibits a myriad of islands different in nature and origin, including continental remnants (Madagascar, the granitic Seychelles), high volcanic islands (Reunion, Mauritius, Rodrigues, the Comoros), high- and low-lying carbonate reef platforms (the carbonate Seychelles, the French Scattered Island Group, Agalega Islands) and a few submerged reef banks (Geyser, Nazareth, Saya de Malha). This region contains all known types of reefs—fringing, barrier, atoll, platform and bank. The data about reef development history over the Quaternary were gained mainly from two distinct sources: boreholes and emerged outcrops. Reef drilling indicates that modern reefs started regionally to grow from about 10,000–9600 years BP. Rates of vertical reef accretion ranges from 0.2 to about 10 mm/year according to exposure and shape of coral builders. The sea-level curves, reconstructed from vertical reef-accretion and lagoon-deposition curves, express a rapid rise in sea level at rates averaging 6 mm/year between 10,000 and 7500–7000 years BP, with a stabilization at the present position around 2500–3000 years BP. There are significant variations in the composition and distribution of dominant reef-building coral assemblages and facies (framework versus detritus) according to exposure to wave energy. Frameworks composed of robust coral branching assemblages—mainly Acropora robusta, A. humilis groups; Isopora palifera—dominate in higher energy settings, while those with domal and tabular branching forms—mainly Porites, various faviids, Acropora hyacinthus group—are best represented in lower-energy to protected environments. Detritus-reefs are best developed in sheltered sites. The recent contribution of some dominant coral species in modern WIO reefs seem to have resulted from their delayed arrival in the region as controlled by the regional prevailing surface circulation—South Equatorial Current and Agulhas Current—and/or by the competency period of their larvae. Coral-based, geochemical records suggest that, during the mid Holocene, the seasonal variability of sea surface temperatures was lower than today. The reconstruction of the WIO Pleistocene reef history is chiefly based on a limited number of exposed reef remains deposited during the last interglacial MIS 5.5 stage (129,000–125,000 years BP), at present culminating at elevations ranging from − 20 to + 9 m with respect to present mean sea level. Such differences in elevation can be explained by a differential tectonic behaviour of reef-bearing substrates, from stable continental areas to subsiding volcanic islands. The existence of older reef generations (Plio-Pleistocene) was identified from coral-rich inclusions trapped into pyroclastites of Comoro volcanoes.

The West Indian Press and Public: Concepts of Regionalism and Federation, 1944–1946

The West Indies Federation was a short-lived venture undertaken by ten British West Indian islands in the mid-twentieth century. The goal was political autonomy for the territories as a single unit, as Britain thought they were too small to be individually viable in the international arena. Utilizing newspapers and newsmagazines as sources, this article establishes the growing support for federal unity in the general West Indian populace in the three years preceding the momentous Montego Bay Conference, which established the foundation for the birth of the Federation.

"Follow me your guide": Poetic Empire in John Singleton's A General Description of the West-Indian Islands

"Follow me your guide": Poetic Empire in John Singleton's A General Description of the West-Indian Islands

Long Voyage Home: Eugene O'Neill's Plays of the Sea

Long Voyage Home: Eugene O'Neill's Plays of the Sea

NEW RECORDS FOR PORCELLANID CRABS (CRUSTACEA: DECAPODA: ANOMURA: PORCELLANIDAE) IN THE WEST INDIAN ISLANDS, WITH DIAGNOSTIC CHARACTERS AND ECOLOGICAL NOTES

New records and extensions of the distribution range of seven species of porcellanid crabs, representing four genera, are reported in the West Indian Islands: Megalobrachium mortenseni, M. poeyi, M. roseum, Pachycheles ackleianus, P. riisei, Petrolisthes rosariensis and Porcellana sayana. The analyzed species are deposited in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and the American Museum of Natural History. It is provided new records from Bahamas, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and The Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago. Diagnostic characters and ecological notes are given for each species.Keywords: Biodiversity, Caribbean islands, range extension, porcelain crabs, west Indies.

Geographic Spread of Solenopsis globularia (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

Several species of Solenopsis have spread beyond their native ranges and have become exotic pests, most notably Solenopsis geminata (Fabricius) and Solenopsis invicta Buren. Here, I examine the geographic spread of a smaller, less conspicuous Solenopsis species, Solenopsis globularia (Smith). I compiled S. globularia specimen records from &gt;700 sites. I documented the earliest known S. globularia records for 59 geographic areas (countries, US states, and major West Indian islands), including many for which I found no previously published records: Anguilla, Antigua, Aruba, Barbuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Congo, Curaçao, Dominica, Martinique, Montserrat, Nevis, St Kitts, St Martin, San Andrés Island, Senegal, Tobago, and Trinidad. Solenopsis globularia has a broad distribution in the New World, from Corrientes, Argentina (28.4°S) in the south to Craven County, North Carolina (35.1°N) in the north. Most S. globularia records came from islands. It is unclear whether S. globularia is native throughout its New World range. For example, it is possible that this species is exotic to the Galapagos Islands. All populations of S. globularia outside the New World are probably exotic, introduced through human commerce, including populations on Atlantic islands (Ascension, Cabo Verde, St Helena), Pacific islands (Hawaii, French Polynesia, Philippines), and Africa (Congo, Ivory Coast, Senegal). On the Cabo Verde islands, off the coast of West Africa, S. globularia is extremely widespread on all nine inhabited islands. Records from nine diverse sites in Ivory Coast indicates that S. globularia is well able to spread in continental Africa as well.

ANTS OF GRENADA (HYMENOPTERA, FORMICIDAE)

On West Indian islands, as elsewhere in the world, ants are a very important component of virtually every terrestrial ecosystem. Nonetheless, the ants of most West Indian islands have remained largely unknown and unstudied. Now several destructive exotic ant species are spreading through the region, threatening native biodiversity. Here, we have compiled published and unpublished ant records and collected new specimens to document the diversity of ants on the island of Grenada. Our investigations increased the list of ant taxa known from the island to 82 (65 New World and 17 Old World species). Of these, 71 species are represented among specimens we collected, whereas 11 are New World species known from Grenada solely on the basis of earlier records. Some species recorded earlier, including at least nine not seen for more than 100 years, may now be extinct on Grenada. Grenada has more New World ant species than are known for Barbados (46), a neighboring island that has 34% more land area. Factors that may contribute to this difference include: 1) during low sea levels 15,000 years ago, Grenada was part of a larger island about 10 times Grenada's current size; 2) Grenada is more mountainous than Barbados; and 3) Grenada has more remaining forest cover than Barbados (50.0% vs. 14.7%). Conversely, Grenada has fewer Old World ant species than are known for Barbados (24). Factors that may contribute to this difference include: 1) lower human population density, 2) lower levels of imported lumber products, and 3) lower tourism levels. Records for only four of the 17 Old World exotic ants found in Grenada date to before 1995. Major tramp ant species that are known from the West Indies but have not yet been recorded from Grenada include Old World species such as the pharaoh ant (Monomorium pharaonis), the African big-headed ant (Pheidole megacephala), and the difficult white-footed ant (Technomyrmex difficilis), as well as the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta).

Historical demography of Coereba flaveola on Puerto Rico

AbstractWe use contemporary genetic diversity to characterize the within-island population structure and historical demography of Bananaquits (Aves: Thraupidae: Coerebinae: Coereba flaveola) on the West Indian island of Puerto Rico (Greater Antilles). We relate periods of population expansion, from Puerto Rico across the Lesser Antilles, to the genetic architecture of the source population, and describe differentiation of populations within Puerto Rico. Lastly, we report comparable analyses of populations of Bananaquits on Jamaica and of a related species, the Black-faced Grassquit (Coerebinae: Tiaris bicolor), on Puerto Rico. We found differentiation among contemporary populations of Bananaquits within Puerto Rico and signatures of renewed demographic expansion in eastern Puerto Rico beginning ~100 kyr ago and, in the western portion of the island, ~40 kyr ago. Populations of T. bicolor on Puerto Rico exhibit similar structure to Bananaquits, while Bananaquits on Jamaica exhibit no differentiation among locations. Both T. bicolor and Jamaican C. flaveola provide mixed evidence of demographic expansion.

Technomyrmex difficilis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), an Old World Arboreal ant, in red Mangroves (Malpighiales: Rhizophora mangle) on West Indian Islands

Technomyrmex difficilis is an Old World arboreal ant that is becoming a major pest in the US and the West Indies. After its first records in the New World in 1986 from Florida, T. difficilis was soon reported from other parts of the New World, including eight West Indian islands (Puerto Rico, New Providence, Grand Cayman, St Croix, St Thomas, Antigua, Nevis, and Jamaica) and Honduras. In Florida, T. difficilis has become one of the most common species found nesting in red mangroves (Rhizophora mangle). Here, we report records of T. difficilis nesting in red mangroves at 16 sites on eight West Indian islands, including four islands with no previously reports of this species (Grand Bahama, St Maarten, Roatan, and Trinidad). It is probable that over the next few years T. difficilis will become increasingly important as a pest in Florida and the West Indies.

Changing Perspectives on Reptile Eggs: One Biologist's Journey from Demography to Development

Abstract This research perspective focuses on three of the disciplinary areas that have engaged my interest as a professional biologist. My research first focused on life history evolution, but it expanded to include the evolution of viviparity, and developmental biology. My subjects are squamate reptiles, although I do hands-on research largely with lizards. A common theme of the research that I discuss here is the role of eggs and embryos in ecological and evolutionary studies and why that role may be critical to the resolution of important biological problems. In this perspective, I summarize highlights of my major research projects since 1971: 1) life history evolution of West Indian island and mainland Anolis lizards; 2) long-term studies on the demography and egg survival of a small, r-selected Panamanian anole; 3) ecological and physiological studies on the transition between oviparity and viviparity in Sceloporus; 4) costs and benefits of the novel rigid-shelled egg of gekkotan lizards; and 5) emb...

‘Avarice and Rapacity’ and ‘Treasonable Correspondence’ in ‘an Emporium for All the World’: The British capture of St Eustatius, 1781

In the Revolutionary War the American rebels relied on supplies of munitions, especially gunpowder, from Europe. To circumvent the embargo and avoid seizure by the British, many of those supplies were routed through the neutral Dutch West Indian island of St Eustatius. To cut off supplies to the Americans, the British invaded and occupied that island. But the trade simply switched to Danish islands, while the British naval and military commanders, Admiral Rodney and General Vaughan, became deeply embroiled in litigation over the illegal seizure and sale of trade goods belonging to the island's merchants.

Further evidence for a distinctive atypical degenerative parkinsonism in the Caribbean: A new cluster in the French West Indian Island of Martinique

BackgroundA high prevalence of an atypical levodopa-resistant parkinsonism has been reported in the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. These seminal observations have not been replicated or extended to neighbouring populations who share genetic and environmental characteristics. MethodsTo further characterise this atypical parkinsonism we prospectively investigated 305 consecutive patients with neurodegenerative parkinsonism in a community-based population from Guadeloupe and Martinique, a neighbouring French Caribbean island where the population has similar environmental and genetic backgrounds. The aims of this study were to confirm the frequency of atypical parkinsonism within this cohort and to precisely define its clinical phenotype. ResultsA high frequency (66%) of atypical parkinsonism was identified in both Guadeloupe and Martinique. The clinical phenotype consisted of a levodopa-resistant parkinsonism with postural instability (72%), early dementia (58%), dysautonomia (58%), rapid-eye-movement sleep behavioural disorder (53%), hallucinations (43%), and supranuclear gaze palsy (29%). A low educational level was identified as a major risk factor for developing atypical parkinsonism (p < .001). ConclusionOur findings support the existence of a distinctive atypical parkinsonism – Caribbean Parkinsonism – within the French Caribbean Islands. This could either correspond to a single entity or reflect a propensity for developing more widespread and rapidly progressive lesions in Caribbean patients with parkinsonism. In both cases, genetic susceptibility and/or environmental exposure may be involved.