01965nas a2200169   4500008004100000245009800041210006900139300000900208490000700217520133200224100002201556700001901578700002201597700002001619700002501639856013101664       2016                        eng d00aCollapse of the invasive garden ant, Lasius neglectus, populations in four European countries0 aCollapse of the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus populations  a31310 v183 a<p>The invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) has been spreading rapidly in Europe ever since the 1990s. This ant established enormous supercolonies in many European cities and poses a serious threat to the local native faunas. The spread of this species has not slowed down in the last decades, but in the recent years the sizes of the known L. neglectus populations have generally been declining or have stagnated. For 29 supercolonies checked in four countries, in 10 cases L. neglectus individuals have not been found on the former area of their occurrence. On the other hand, only two supercolonies have expanded. In this paper, we summarize these monitoring data collected by the personal independent, diligent monitoring activities of myrmecologists on populations of the invasive garden ant in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Spain. The reasons for this collapse are thought to be: (1) depletion of the local resources, (2) gradation of pathogens and (social)parasites, (3) climatic factors, (4) intra-population mechanisms, (5) confrontation with highly competitive native species, and (6) lack of suitable nesting microhabitats. As similar phenomena were observed in the cases of supercolonies of other invasive ant species, it seems that they decline more generally than has been thought.</p>
1 aTartally, András1 aAntonova, Vera1 aEspadaler, Xavier1 aCsősz, Sándor1 aCzechowski, Wojciech  uhttps://formicidae-bg.myspecies.info/content/collapse-invasive-garden-ant-lasius-neglectus-populations-four-european-countries01626nas a2200193   4500008004100000245009900041210006900140300000700209490000900216520090200225653001201127653001601139653002901155653004401184653001901228100002201247700002601269856013701295       2016                        eng d00aThe Westpalaearctic Lasius paralienus complex (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) contains three species0 aWestpalaearctic Lasius paralienus complex Hymenoptera Formicidae  a580 v41323 a<p>Application of Numeric Morphology-Based Alpha-Taxonomy (NUMOBAT) demonstrated the existence of three cryptic species within the Westpalaearctic Lasius paralienus species complex: L. paralienus Seifert, 1992, having a wider European distribution north to Sweden, L. casevitzi sp. nov., an endemic of Corsica, and Lasius bombycina sp. nov. from southeast Central Europe, the Balkans and Asia Minor. Hierarchical NC-Ward clustering and non-hierarchical NC-k-means clustering of 16 morphological characters resulted in 98.7% identical classifications within 76 examined nest samples of the three species. The classification error in 180 worker individuals was 0% in a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and 1.3% in a LOOCV-LDA. Differential characters to other species groups and an identification key of the six European members of the Lasius alienus F&ouml;rster species group are provided.</p>
10aendemic10amorphometry10anest centroid clustering10aNumeric morphology-based alpha-taxonomy10asister species1 aSeifert, Bernhard1 aGalkowski, Christophe  uhttps://formicidae-bg.myspecies.info/content/westpalaearctic-lasius-paralienus-complex-hymenoptera-formicidae-contains-three-species