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Alessandro Minelli

  • Biodiversity Journal, 8 (1): 049-058 - MONOGRAPH

    Alessandro Minelli
    Modern taxonomic and biogeographic approaches to biodiversity in the Mediterranean area

    ABSTRACT
    I review here examples of recent progress in the taxonomy and biogeography of Mediterranean taxa. Morphological approaches have still much to offer, as shown by a study of the Sicilian species of the wingless weevil genus Pseudomeira Stierlin, 1881 (Coleoptera Curculionidae). A systematic analysis of molecular markers, however, is revealing a huge number of previously unsuspected cryptic species, as in the scarab genus Pachypus Dejean, 1821 (Coleoptera Pachypodidae). Other molecular studies have revealed very deep phylo- geographic structure in the Corsican brook salamander; the presence of six or more species hitherto lumped under Rumina decollata (Linnaeus, 1758) (Pulmonata Subulinidae), in a snail genus in which biparental and uniparental reproduction coexist; the conservation of the same male pheromone in vicariant species of the scarab beetles of the genus Osmoderma Lepeletier et Serville, 1828 (Coleoptera Cetoniidae); the interplay of vicariance and dispersal events in giving rise to the different taxa of the land snail genus Chilostoma Fitzinger, 1833 (Gastropoda Helicidae) inhabiting the Greek islands. Further examples of modern biogeographic studies are a morphometric analysis revealing the preferential localization of steep slopes of phenetic diversity of seven butterfly species groups in the Tuscan archipelago and across the Strait of Messina; a research on tenebrionid beetles showing that present distribution patterns are not completely explained by postglacial recolonization from Pleistocenic refugia; a comparative analysis of the diversity of patterns (explained in part by vicariance, in part by dispersal) in the biota on the two shores of the Strait of Gibraltar. A study on the ocellated lizards provides a nice analysis of climatic niche evolution throughout speciation. Finally, a comparative study of mtDNA from spurge hawkmoths collected between 1884 and 1986 has demonstrated the complete disappearance, within one century, of a lineage from a former area of sympatry with what now appears as its vicariant.

  • Biodiversity Journal, 6 (1): 123-138 - MONOGRAPH

    Alessandro Minelli
    Taxonomy faces speciation: the origin of species or the fading out of the species?
    Proceedings of the 2nd International Congress “Speciation and Taxonomy”, May 16th-18th 2014, Cefalù-Castelbuono (Italy)

    ABSTRACT
    Efficient field sampling and new investigation tools, including barcoding and other molecular techniques, are bringing to light an unexpected wealth of new species, including sets of morphologically quite uniform, but genetically distinct cryptic species. On the other hand, increasing appreciation of the dynamic nature of the species and a better knowledge of speciation processes and introgression phenomena challenges the taxonomists’ efforts to shoehorn all diversity of life into a formal classification of which the species would be the basic unit. Unfortunately, there is probably not a single best notion of species, either in theory or in practice.

  • Biodiversity Journal, 3 (4): 267-272

    Alessandro Minelli
    Dream islands and island dreams

    ABSTRACT
    The contribution to the development of biogeography and evolutionary biology offered by investigations on insular floras and faunas is briefly reviewed. Implications of the dynamic nature of insular biota for faunistic and floristic research are stressed.