Red wood ants (RWAs) are a group of keystone species widespread in temperate and boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere. Despite this, there is increasing evidence of local declines and extinctions. We reviewed the current protection status of RWAs throughout Europe and their International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threat classification. Only some RWA species have been assessed at a global scale, and not all national red lists of the countries where RWAs are present include these species. Different assessment criteria, inventory approaches, and risk categories are used in different countries, and data deficiency is frequent. Legislative protection is even more complex, with some countries protecting RWAs implicitly together with the wildlife fauna and others explicitly protecting the whole group or particular species. This complexity often occurs within countries, for example, in Italy, where, outside of the Alps, only the introduced species are protected, whereas the native species, which are in decline, are not. Therefore, an international, coordinated framework is needed for the protection of RWAs. This first requires that the conservation target should be defined. Due to the similar morphology, complex taxonomy, and frequent hybridization, protecting the entire RWA group seems a more efficient strategy than protecting single species, although with a distinction between autochthonous and introduced species. Second, an update of the current distribution of RWA species is needed throughout Europe. Third, a protection law cannot be effective without the collaboration of forest managers, whose activity influences RWA habitat. Finally, RWA mounds offer a peculiar microhabitat, hosting a multitude of taxa, some of which are obligate myrmecophilous species on the IUCN Red List. Therefore, RWAs’ role as umbrella species could facilitate their protection if they are considered not only as target species but also as providers of species-rich microhabitats.
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Pachacamac is a major precolumbian site located on Peru’s Central Coast. Covering approximately 6 km2, the site was occupied for over a thousand years before the Spanish conquest in the early sixteenth century. In 2012, the Ychsma Project discovered a unique Late Intermediate period (AD 900–1470) multiple burial (“Cx4”) made of two funerary chambers with a vegetal roof structure, containing over 110 intact and fragmentary deceased together with numerous grave goods. More than 60% of the individuals are subadults whose sex cannot be assigned using osteological observation. Among the adults, 23 females and 20 males were identified, and the sex of the remaining four individuals couldn’t be assigned with certainty. We aim to fully understand the sociobiology of the Cx4 population, including biological sex, using a combined bioarchaeology and molecular archaeology approach. Despite significant human modern contamination and low amounts of endogenous ancient DNA, our results show that sex could be assigned genetically in >70% of the cases, including subadults. Sex identification of infants, children and adolescents is crucial to fully understand this complex context and its funerary recruitment, and to perform an integrated and holistic analysis of all associated data.
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2024
