Vol 98, No 1 (2018)

Population density can influence insect reproduction both directly and indirectly causing quantitative and qualitative changes in the feeding regime. We investigated the impact of diet and population density on reproductive maturation of females from native (Irkutsk) and invasive (Sochi) populations of the multicolored Asian ladybird Harmonia axyridis. During the study the beetles fed either on the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae, or on less suitable factitious food (eggs of the grain moth Sitotroga cerealella). Population density was determined by the number of females and males placed in a standard Petri dish. The experiments showed that feeding on the grain moth eggs (other conditions being equal) delayed maturation and increased the tendency to enter reproductive diapause in females from the native but not from the invasive population of H. axyridis. In addition, the preoviposition period increased with the number of females but decreased with the number of males in a dish, although these effects were observed only in individuals from the invasive population and their strength depended on the food of the beetles. Earlier we have demonstrated that the impact of the density-dependent factors on the larvae of the invasive population of H. axyridis was stronger than that on the larvae of the native population because the larvae of the invasive population have somewhat more aggressive interactions with competitors. In the present study, similar differences were revealed between females of these populations.

The structure of 76 skeletal elements of adult fleas was analyzed, and the distribution of 114 characters with 446 character states over the body tagmata, segments, and morphofunctional complexes was investigated. Among them, 40% of the characters (40) and their states (163) describe the diversity of the structures of the frontal complex (including those of the head and prothorax), which is related to the specific features of flea parasitism. A large part of the characters (18) and their states (83) describe the structures of the nototrochanteral complex of the meso- and metathorax responsible for jumping. The total number of all types of homoplasies (258 states) is almost 1.8 times as great as the number of the states (145) that may be regarded as synapomorphies. The ancestral states (43) comprise a smaller portion of the total number. The proportion of the synapomorphic and homoplastic character states varies between the morphofunctional complexes.

The route of the zoological subunit of the Yakut complex expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences for the study of the productive resources of the Yakut ASSR in 1925 is described. The expedition, including researchers from the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences L.V. Bianchi (head) and A.I. Ivanov, collected insects in the Lena-Amga interfluve. First, they explored the right bank of the Lena River from Bestyakh Station to Kachikattsy Village, then crossed the Lena-Amga interfluve through the Menda and Tengyutte river basins, then rafted down the Amga River from the Tengyutte River mouth to Amga Village, and returned to Bestyakh Station by the Amga-Yakutsk road. Geographic coordinates of the collection localities and camping places along the entire expedition route are given for the first time; many of the visited localities are not marked in the modern maps.

This paper provides a list of 125 species from 22 families of Microlepidoptera collected in the south of Krasnoyarsk Territory and in the Republic ofKhakassia, with 63 species (50%) and 2 families (Bucculatricidae and Elachistidae) recorded in the region for the first time, and 11 species from 6 families being new to Siberia: Cauchas fibulella, Nemophora fasciella, N. minimella (Adelidae), Phyllonorycter sorbicola, Phyllocnistis extrematrix (Gracillariidae), Cosmiotes freyerella, Elachista subocellea (Elachistidae), Caryocolum alsinella, Scrobipalpula diffluella (Gelechiidae), Agonopterix intersecta (Depressariidae), and Ypsolopha horridella (Ypsolophidae). Three species are new to science: Phyllonorycter sp. and Phyllocnistis verae (Gracillariidae) from the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk and Chrysoesthia sp. (Gelechiidae) from the Republic of Khakassia. Almost half of the faunistic findings belong to two families, Gelechiidae (34 species) and Gracillariidae (24 species). In the former family, the number of species distributed in Krasnoyarsk Territory and/or Khakassia was increased by 1.5 times based on our collection. Trophic specialization remains unknown only for 7 of the 125 species. Most (90%) of the remaining 118 species are phytophagous, the others are saprophagous; 53 species are known as leaf miners. Phytophagous species feed on plants of 36 families and 21 orders. The largest number of microlepidopteran species inhabit plants of the orders Rosales and Fagales (25 and 24 species, respectively). Twelve species are known as pests: Tineidae (4 species), Gracillariidae, Gelechiidae (2 species in each), Argyresthiidae, Choreutidae, Lyonetiidae, and Plutellidae (one species in each). Four pest species have expanded beyond the Palaearctic in the last century: Choreutis pariana (Choreutidae), Scrobipalpa atriplicella (Gelechiidae), Plutella xylostella (Plutellidae), and Niditinea fuscella (Tineidae).

A new species, Eurytoma koreana Zerova et Fursov, sp. n., is described from South Korea. The new species is closely related to Eurytoma verticillata (Fabricius) but differs in the structure of the antennae and the fore wings in both sexes. The holotype and paratypes are deposited in the collection of the Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences ofUkraine, Kyiv, Ukraine.

To date, the North Caucasus, particularly the territory of Stavropol Territory, is traditionally indicated as the habitat of the tick Ixodes crenulatus Koch, 1844. I. kaiseri Arthur, 1957 was previously known only from a single site in the Eastern Ciscaucasia. Re-examination of collections from the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia has shown that the overwhelming majority of the specimens from these regions belong to the species I. kaiseri, allowing the revision of common views on the range boundaries of both species.