Explanipedia

Mouthparts and Alimentary Tract of Flower-Visiting Monkey Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea: Hopliini): Insights into Feeding Preferences Open

Michael Neulinger, Florian Karolyi, Jonathan F. Colville, Myriam E. Widmann, Jonas Kristl , et al. · 2025

Monkey beetles (Hopliini, Scarabaeoidea) are a species-rich group of flower-visiting insects that are specialized to feed on floral tissue, pollen and/or nectar. We studied ten South African species, examining morphological features associ…

300 billion years of angiosperm evolution at risk of extinction Open

Félix Forest, Ruth Brown, Sven Buerki, Jonathan F. Colville, Justin Moat , et al. · 2025

Extinction results in not only loss of species, but also loss of the unique evolutionary history that they represent and the irreplaceable features they exhibit. There is broad consensus regarding the necessity to optimise the preservation…

EDITORIAL PAGES Open

Jonathan F. Colville · 2024

Editorial. Chairman's Report - The last eight years. Honorary Life and Sponsor Members of LEPSOC Africa Metamorphosis Peer Reviewers

Fine‐scale bee species distribution models: Hotspots of richness and endemism in <span>South Africa</span> with species‐area comparisons Open

Annalie Melin, Colin M. Beale, John C. Manning, Jonathan F. Colville · 2024

While global patterns of bee diversity have been modelled, our understanding of fine‐scale regional patterns is more limited, particularly for under‐sampled regions such as Africa. South Africa is among the exceptions on the African contin…

Delimiting zoogeographic centres for South African Orthoptera Open

Mikhaila Leigh Gordon, Vanessa Couldridge, Adriaan Engelbrecht, Jonathan F. Colville · 2023

Biogeography attempts to find explanations for the distributions of species, based on their past histories and present environmental conditions. Historically, biogeographic studies were modelled on intuitive and expert knowledge, whereas r…

Pollination supply models from a local to global scale Open

Á. Giménez-García, Alfonso Allen‐Perkins, Ígnasi Bartomeus, Stefano Balbi, Jessica Knapp , et al. · 2023

Ecological intensification has been embraced with great interest by the academic sector but is still rarely taken up by farmers because monitoring the state of different ecological functions is not straightforward. Modelling tools can repr…

Urban intensity and flower community structure drive monkey beetle assemblage in Cape Town Open

Peta Brom, Jonathan F. Colville, Les G Underhill, Kevin Winter · 2023

Background: Urban landscapes present an important opportunity for pollinator conservation, but little is known about the status and distribution of pollinator populations in urban habitats in Africa. This represents a major gap in the deve…

A mowing strategy for urban parks to support spring flowers in a mediterranean climate city in South Africa Open

Peta Brom, Les G Underhill, Kevin Winter, Jonathan F. Colville · 2023

Converting road verges and Public Open Space (POS) to floral-rich resources is an important strategy for supporting populations of urban pollinators. One of the ways this can be achieved is through adjusting mowing schedules, either with a…

Genetic and Evolutionary Insights into Bladder Grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Pneumoridae) Open

Mikhaila Leigh Gordon, Vanessa Couldridge, Adriaan Engelbrecht, Jonathan F. Colville · 2023

Description of the male of Rediviva steineri Kuhlmann, 2012 (Hymenoptera: Melittidae), an endemic oil-collecting bee species from South Africa Open

Annalie Melin, Jonathan F. Colville · 2022

We describe the male of Rediviva steineri Kuhlmann, 2012; distinguished by the shape and the margin of the apical plate of the eighth sterna and the vestiture of metasomal terga two and three. Five males were collected at the type locality…

Hidden Diversity—A New Speciose Gall Midge Genus (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) Associated with Succulent Aizoaceae in South Africa Open

Netta Dorchin, S Van Munster, Cornelia Klak, Rauri C. K. Bowie, Jonathan F. Colville · 2022

Aizoaceae (Caryophyllales) constitute one of the major floral components of the unique Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR), with more than 1700 species and 70% endemism. Within succulent Aizoaceae, the subfamily Ruschioideae is the most s…

Nectar Uptake of a Long-Proboscid Prosoeca Fly (Nemestrinidae)—Proboscis Morphology and Flower Shape Open

Harald Krenn, Florian Karolyi, Peter W. Lampert, Annalie Melin, Jonathan F. Colville · 2021

Several Prosoeca (Nemestinidae) species use a greatly elongated proboscis to drink nectar from long-tubed flowers. We studied morphological adaptations for nectar uptake of Prosoecamarinusi that were endemic to the Northern Cape of South A…

Sexual deception of a beetle pollinator through floral mimicry Open

Callan Cohen, William Liltved, Jonathan F. Colville, Adam Shuttleworth, Jerrit Weißflog , et al. · 2021

Observations on Unusual Feeding and Mating Behaviour of a Monkey Beetle Genus Amblymelanoplia Dombrow (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Hopliini) Open

L. McLeod, Jonathan F. Colville · 2021

Sexual deception of a beetle pollinator through floral mimicry Open

Callan Cohen, William Liltved, Jonathan F. Colville, Adam Shuttleworth, Jerrit Weißflog , et al. · 2021

Combined DNA alignment (trnLF, matK, ITS) used for the phylogenetic analysis in this paper.

Sexual deception of a beetle pollinator through floral mimicry Open

Callan Cohen, William Liltved, Jonathan F. Colville, Adam Shuttleworth, Jerrit Weißflog , et al. · 2021

Combined DNA alignment (trnLF, matK, ITS) used for the phylogenetic analysis in this paper.

Plant richness, turnover, and evolutionary diversity track gradients of stability and ecological opportunity in a megadiversity center Open

Jonathan F. Colville, Colin M. Beale, Félix Forest, Res Altwegg, Brian Huntley , et al. · 2020

Significance What explains global patterns of diversity—environmental history or ecology? Most studies have focused on latitudinal gradients—the decline of diversity from the tropics to the poles. A problem with this is that it conflates p…

Data from: Diversity of pollen sources used by managed honeybees in variegated landscapes Open

Annalie Melin, Jonathan F. Colville, Res Altwegg, Ruhan Slabbert, Jeremy J. Midgley , et al. · 2019

Supporting Raw Data This excel contains supporting raw data for the manuscript, including: Sequence ID, collector information, date of pollen collection, Location of apiary, source of pollen DNA Data This file contains the DN…

The allometry of proboscis length in Melittidae (Hymenoptera: Apoidae) and an estimate of their foraging distance using museum collections Open

Annalie Melin, Harald Krenn, Rauri C. K. Bowie, Colin M. Beale, John C. Manning , et al. · 2019

An appreciation of body size allometry is central for understanding insect pollination ecology. A recent model utilises allometric coefficients for five of the seven extant bee families (Apoidea: Anthophila) to include crucial but difficul…

Assessing the role of dispersed floral resources for managed bees in providing supporting ecosystem services for crop pollination Open

Annalie Melin, Mathieu Rouget, Jonathan F. Colville, Jeremy J. Midgley, John S. Donaldson · 2018

Most pollination ecosystem services studies have focussed on wild pollinators and their dependence on natural floral resources adjacent to crop fields. However, managed pollinators depend on a mixture of floral resources that are spatially…

Feeding ecology and sexual dimorphism in a speciose flower beetle clade (Hopliini: Scarabaeidae) Open

Jonathan F. Colville, Mike D. Picker, Richard M. Cowling · 2018

The relationship between feeding ecology and sexual dimorphism is examined in a speciose South African monkey beetle clade. We test whether feeding and mating at a fixed site (embedding guild) is associated with greater levels of sexual di…

The gall-midge fauna of the Aizoaceae of the Greater Cape Floristic Region Open

S Van Munster, A.R. Magee, J.S. Boatwright, Netta Dorchin, Cornelia Klak , et al. · 2018

Hotbeds of diversity in the stone plant genus Conophytum (Ruschioideae, Aizoaceae) Open

Robyn F. Powell, J.S. Boatwright, Andrew Young, Jonathan F. Colville, Cornelia Klak , et al. · 2017

Counting complete? Finalising the plant inventory of a global biodiversity hotspot Open

Martina Treurnicht, Jonathan F. Colville, Lucas Joppa, Onno Huyser, John C. Manning · 2017

The Cape Floristic Region—the world’s smallest and third richest botanical hotspot—has benefited from sustained levels of taxonomic effort and exploration for almost three centuries, but how close is this to resulting in a near-complete pl…

Counting complete? Finalising the plant inventory of a global biodiversity hotspot Open

Martina Treurnicht, Jonathan F. Colville, Lucas Joppa, Onno Huyser, John C. Manning · 2016

The Cape Floristic Region – the world’s smallest, but third richest hotspot – experienced sustained levels of taxonomic effort and exploration for almost three centuries resulting in a near-complete plant species inventory. Here we analyse…

Counting complete? Finalising the plant inventory of a global biodiversity hotspot Open

Martina Treurnicht, Jonathan F. Colville, Lucas Joppa, Onno Huyser, John C. Manning · 2016

The Cape Floristic Region – the world’s smallest, but third richest hotspot – experienced sustained levels of taxonomic effort and exploration for almost three centuries resulting in a near-complete plant species inventory. Here we analyse…

Soil biota in a megadiverse country: Current knowledge and future research directions in South Africa Open

Charlene Janion‐Scheepers, John Measey, Brigitte Braschler, Steven L. Chown, Louise Coetzee , et al. · 2016

Correction: Corrigendum: Delivery of crop pollination services is an insufficient argument for wild pollinator conservation Open

David Kleijn, Rachael Winfree, Ígnasi Bartomeus, Luísa G. Carvalheiro, Mickaël Henry , et al. · 2016

Comparative morphology of the mouthparts of the megadiverse South African monkey beetles (Scarabaeidae: Hopliini): feeding adaptations and guild structure Open

Florian Karolyi, Teresa Hansal, Harald Krenn, Jonathan F. Colville · 2016

Although anthophilous Coleoptera are regarded to be unspecialised flower-visiting insects, monkey beetles (Scarabaeidae: Hopliini) represent one of the most important groups of pollinating insects in South Africa’s floristic hotspot of the…

Understanding the evolutionary radiation of the megadiverse monkey beetle fauna (Scarabaeidae: Hopliini) of South Africa Open

Jonathan F. Colville · 2015

South Africa is the global centre of diversification for monkey beetles (Scarabaeidae: Hopliini). 69 % of the world fauna occur here, with 98% of the 1040 South African species and 80% of the South African genera being national endemics. T…

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