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Species of rust fungi of the genus Milesina (Pucciiastraceae, Pucciniales) are distributed mainly in northern temperate regions. They host-alternate between needles of fir (Abies spp.) and fronds of ferns (species of Polypodiales). Milesina species are distinguished based on host taxonomy and urediniospore morphology. In this study, 12 species of Milesina from Europe were revised. Specimens were examined by light and scanning electron microscopy for urediniospore morphology with a focus on visualising germ pores (number, size and position) and echinulation. In addition, barcode loci (ITS, nad6, 28S) were used for species delimitation and for molecular phylogenetic analyses. Barcodes of 72 Milesina specimens were provided, including 11 of the 12 species. Whereas urediniospore morphology features were sufficient to distinguish all 12 Milesina species except for 2 (M. blechni and M. kriegeriana), ITS sequences separated only 4 of 11 species. Sequencing with 28S and nad6 did not improve species resolution. Phylogenetic analysis, however, revealed four phylogenetic groups within Milesina that also correlate with specific urediniospore characters (germ pore number and position and echinulation). These groups are proposed as new sections within Milesina (sections Milesina, Vogesiacae M. Scholler & Bubner, sect. nov., Scolopendriorum M. Scholler & Bubner, sect. nov. and Carpaticae M. Scholler & Bubner, sect. nov.). In addition, Milesina woodwardiana Buchheit & M. Scholler, sp. nov. on Woodwardia radicans, a member of the type section Milesina, is newly described. An identification key for European Milesina species, based on urediniospore features, is provided.
Towards Eurasia
(2019)
In order to heed the call in world literature studies to work against disciplinary Eurocentrism by refiguring both what constitutes world literature and how this is read, in this article I propose world literature as an archive of world-making practices and as an impulse for the articulation of alternative methodological approaches. This takes world literature from the postcolonial South as, following Pheng Cheah, instantiating a modality of world literature in which the need for imagining worlds with alternative centres to those determined by coloniality is particularly acute. A response to this is facilitated and illustrated by a reading of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore’s Letters from Russia (1930), and South African writer/activist Alex La Guma’s A Soviet Journey (1978). By drawing forward connections between the postcolonial South and the former Soviet Union, this complicates traditional colonial arrangements of the colonial ‘centre’ as cradle of civilisation and culture, as well as postcolonial scholarship’s cumulative fetishisation of ‘Europe’, by allowing a reshuffling of the co-ordinates determining ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ and a more nuanced grasp of ‘Europe’ simultaneously. These imaginative journeys destabilise ‘Europe’ as closed category and call forth Eurasia as a more appropriate categorical–cartographical framework for thinking this space and the connections and (hi)story-telling it stages and fosters.
Ongoing and past biome transitions are generally assigned to climate and atmospheric changes (e.g. temperature, precipitation, CO2), but the major regional factors or factor combinations that drive vegetation change often remain unknown. Modelling studies applying ensemble runs can help to partition the effects of the different drivers. Such studies require careful validation with observational data. In this study, fossil pollen records from 741 sites in Europe, 728 sites in North America, and 418 sites in Asia (extracted from terrestrial archives including lake sediments) are used to reconstruct biomes at selected time slices between 40 cal ka BP (calibrated thousand years before present) and today. These results are used to validate Northern Hemisphere biome distributions (>30 degrees N) simulated by the biome model BIOME4 that has been forced with climate data simulated by a General Circulation model. Quantitative comparisons between pollen- and model-based results show a generally good fit at a broad spatial scale. Mismatches occur in central-arid Asia with a broader extent of grassland throughout the last 40 ka (likely due to the over-representation of Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae pollen) and in Europe with over-estimation of tundra at 0 cal ka BP (likely due to human impacts to some extent). Sensitivity analysis reveals that broad-scale biome changes follow the global signal of major postglacial temperature change, although the climatic variables vary in their regional and temporal importance. Temperature is the dominant variable in Europe and other rather maritime areas for biome changes between 21 and 14 ka, while precipitation is highly important in the arid inland regions of Asia and North America. The ecophysiological effect of changes in the atmospheric CO2-concentration has the highest impact during this transition than in other intervals. With respect to modern vegetation in the course of global warming, our findings imply that vegetation change in the Northern Hemisphere may be strongly limited by effective moisture changes, i.e. the combined effect of temperature and precipitation, particularly in inland areas. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
This is the eleventh of a series of miscellaneous contributions, by various authors, where hitherto unpublished data relevant to both the Med-Checklist and the Euro+Med (or Sisyphus) projects are presented. This instalment deals with the families Anacardiaceae, Asparagaceae (incl. Hyacinthaceae), Bignoniaceae, Cactaceae, Compositae, Cruciferae, Cyperaceae, Ericaceae, Gramineae, Labiatae, Leguminosae, Orobanchaceae, Polygonaceae, Rosaceae, Solanaceae and Staphyleaceae. It includes new country and area records and taxonomic and distributional considerations for taxa in Bidens, Campsis, Centaurea, Cyperus, Drymocallis, Engem, Hoffmannseggia, Hypopitys, Lavandula, Lithraea, Melilotus, Nicotiana, Olimarabidopsis, Opuntia, Orobanche, Phelipanche, Phragmites, Rumex, Salvia, Schinus, Staphylea, and a new combination in Drimia.
Towards Eurasia
(2019)
In order to heed the call in world literature studies to work against disciplinary Eurocentrism by refiguring both what constitutes world literature and how this is read, in this article I propose world literature as an archive of world-making practices and as an impulse for the articulation of alternative methodological approaches. This takes world literature from the postcolonial South as, following Pheng Cheah, instantiating a modality of world literature in which the need for imagining worlds with alternative centres to those determined by coloniality is particularly acute. A response to this is facilitated and illustrated by a reading of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore’s Letters from Russia (1930), and South African writer/activist Alex La Guma’s A Soviet Journey (1978). By drawing forward connections between the postcolonial South and the former Soviet Union, this complicates traditional colonial arrangements of the colonial ‘centre’ as cradle of civilisation and culture, as well as postcolonial scholarship’s cumulative fetishisation of ‘Europe’, by allowing a reshuffling of the co-ordinates determining ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ and a more nuanced grasp of ‘Europe’ simultaneously. These imaginative journeys destabilise ‘Europe’ as closed category and call forth Eurasia as a more appropriate categorical–cartographical framework for thinking this space and the connections and (hi)story-telling it stages and fosters.