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Ulrich Kutschera

  • Biodiversity Journal, 15 (2): 115-121

    Ulrich Kutschera & Rajnish Khanna
    The Significance of Darwin’s Origin of Species 1872 and ecology of salt-marsh plants in Northern California, USA
    https://doi.org/10.31396/Biodiv.Jour.2024.15.2.115.121

    ABSTRACT
    In 1872, the 6th (last) edition of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published, wherein he had added a well-known section on Mivart’s criticism of 1871 concerning natural selection. Here, we describe Darwin’s ideas on “lower vs. higher organisms”, inclusive of his hypothesis of steady “perfection” and species co-existence during the evolutionary history of life. In addition, Darwin discussed evolution with reference to ecological interactions, proposed the concept of “competitive exclusion”, and, in our view, founded “evolutionary ecology”. These concepts were not addressed in the first, frequently quoted text of 1859. Therefore, we present Darwin’s ignored section with reference to a major recent paper on “Co-existence of plant species under harsh environmental conditions”, as well as our own observations on marsh vegetation in the San Francisco Bay Estuary. We conclude that “Darwin 1872” should be recognized as the definitive version of the “Species Book”, as recommended by the author himself and with reference to Letters published in the Darwin Correspondence Project-2023.

  • Biodiversity Journal, 14 (4): 0537-0546

    Ulrich Kutschera
    The taxonomic status of the San Francisco Bay area Leech Helobdella triserialis (SF) (Annelida Hirudinida Glossiphoniidae) with notes on its ecology
    https://doi.org/10.31396/Biodiv.Jour.2023.14.4.537.546
    https://www.zoobank.org/89109D15-BF7A-47AD-B509-B875D6A981EC

    ABSTRACT
    Over the past decades, freshwater leeches of the genus Helobdella Blanchard, 1896 (Annelida: Hirudinida: Glossiphoniidae) have been used as model organisms for developmental studies. Notably, the species ”Helobdella triserialis US”, discovered during the 1970s in ponds in San Francisco (California , USA) was kept in lab-populations and served as representative of the genus, as documented in numerous publications. Here, I show that this enigmatic “San Francisco Bay area leech” has been misclassified and confused with the South American species H. triserialis (E. Blanchard, 1849), and later with H. papillata (Moore, 1952). Using specimens collected in Matadero Creek, Palo Alto (California , USA), novel morphological, anatomical, behavioral and molecular data (novel mitochondrial 618 bp-COI gene sequence) were generated. Based on these results, it is shown that this taxon represents a new North American species, described here as Helobdella farmeri n. sp. In addition, the occurrence of extant and extinct populations of Helobdella sp. in natural habitats of Northern California is documented over the past three decades.