A checklist of Lichen-forming, Lichenicolous and Allied Fungi of Ecuador is presented with a total of 2599 species, of which 39 are reported for the first time from the country. The names of three species, Hypotrachyna montufariensis, H. subpartita and Sticta hypoglabra, previously not validly published, are validated. Pertusaria oahuensis, originally introduced by Magnusson as ‘ad interim’, is validated as Lepra oahuensis. The form Leucodermia leucomelos f. albociliata is validated. Two new combinations, Fissurina tectigera and F. timida, are made, and Physcia mobergii is introduced as a replacement name for the illegitimate P. lobulata Moberg non (Flörke) Arnold. In an initial step, the checklist was compiled by reviewing literature records of Ecuadorian lichen biota spanning from the late 19th century to the present day. Subsequently, records were added based on vouchers from 56 collections participating in the Consortium of Lichen Herbaria, a Symbiota-based biodiversity platform with particular focus on, but not exclusive to, North and South America. Symbiota provides sophisticated tools to manage biodiversity data, such as occurrence records, a taxonomic thesaurus, and checklists. The thesaurus keeps track of frequently changing names, distinguishing taxa currently accepted from ones considered synonyms. The software also provides tools to create and manage checklists, with an emphasis on selecting vouchers based on occurrence records that can be verified for identification accuracy. Advantages and limitations of creating checklists in Symbiota versus traditional ways of compiling these lists are discussed. Traditional checklists are well suited to document current knowledge as a ‘snapshot in time’. They are important baselines, frequently used by ecologists and conservation scientists as an established naming convention for citing species reported from a country. Compiling these lists, however, requires an immense effort, only to inadequately address the dynamic nature of scientific discovery. Traditional checklists are thus quickly out of date, particularly in groups with rapidly changing taxonomy, such as lichenized fungi. Especially in megadiverse countries, where new species and new occurrences continue to be discovered, traditional checklists are not easily updated; these lists necessarily fall short of efficiently managing immense data sets, and they rely primarily on secondary evidence (i.e. literature records rather than specimens). Ideally, best practices make use of dynamic database platforms such as Symbiota to assess occurrence records based both on literature citations and voucher specimens. Using modern data management tools comes with a learning curve. Systems like Symbiota are not necessarily intuitive and their functionality can still be improved, especially when handling literature records. However, online biodiversity data platforms have much potential in more efficiently managing and assessing large biodiversity data sets, particularly when investigating the lichen biota of megadiverse countries such as Ecuador.

Conservation practices in agricultural landscapes can greatly mitigate biodiversity loss. However, agricultural landscapes are embedded in complex, social-ecological systems and therefore require a strong social-ecological approach for effective conservation measures. The Galapagos Islands are globally recognized for their high levels of biodiversity. Nevertheless, in recent years, Galapagos landbirds have suffered rapid declines, specifically in the agricultural zone. Our study is the first to examine the farmers’ perception of landbirds in the agricultural zone of Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 38 farmers to characterize the relationship between farmers and landbirds including how landbirds affect farmers and farmers’ perceptions of landbirds. The interviewed farmers managed a diverse array of farm types including coffee in agroforestry settings (23.7%), small-scale fruit and vegetable (60.5%) and livestock production (15.8%). We found that 86.9% of farmers had a positive or neutral perception of birds despite 52.6% of farmers finding finches bothersome. The most common techniques farmers employed to deter birds were putting out food and water, using nets to protect seedbeds and crops and using protective tubes around young plants. Our results suggest a positive potential for future conservation work targeted on farmland biodiversity. Future conservation projects should also address disservices and the mitigation of crop raiding by landbirds, the uninformed use of pesticides and other pest issues such as ants and rats.

Jia De Laubenfels, 1930 was erected to accommodate Californian Jia jia, a microcionid sponge possessing a unique J-shaped microsclere, subsequently named croca (crook, shepherd's staff). In later revisions, the genus was assigned to the synonymy of Antho Gray, 1867 because of similarity in skeletal and spicular characters with that large worldwide genus. Over the years, two additional species, one Atlantic, one from the Tropical East Pacific, were found to possess the crocae, and here four additional species with these intriguing spicules are described from Indo-West and East Pacific localities. It appears that now seven species, all Antho-like, are known to possess crocae, together distributed over all three oceans. This leads us to hypothesize that crocae are a shared character of a monophyletic group of Antho species and accordingly we propose to revive Jia as a subgenus of Antho. The four new species are Antho (Jia) galapagosensis sp. nov., Antho (Jia) lithisticola sp. nov., Antho (Jia) wunschorum sp. nov. and Antho (Jia) ramosa sp. nov.

Parasites often have shorter generation times and, in some cases, faster mutation rates than their hosts, which can lead to greater population differentiation in the parasite relative to the host. Here we present a population genetic study of two ectoparasitic flies, Olfersia spinifera and Olfersia aenescens compared with their respective bird hosts, great frigatebirds (Fregata minor) and Nazca boobies (Sula granti). Olfersia spinifera is the vector of a haemosporidian parasite, Haemoproteus iwa, which infects frigatebirds throughout their range. Interestingly, there is no genetic differentiation in the haemosporidian parasite across this range despite strong genetic differentiation between Galapagos frigatebirds and their non-Galapagos conspecifics. It is possible that the broad distribution of this one H. iwa lineage could be facilitated by movement of infected O. spinifera. Therefore, we predicted more gene flow in both fly species compared with the bird hosts. Mitochondrial DNA sequence data from three genes per species indicated that despite marked differences in the genetic structure of the bird hosts, gene flow was very high in both fly species. A likely explanation involves non-breeding movements of hosts, including movement of juveniles, and movement by adult birds whose breeding attempt has failed, although we cannot rule out the possibility that closely related host species may be involved.

Parasites place their hosts under strong selection for adaptive traits that increase parasite resistance. The initial impact of invasive parasites has rarely been observed and can be particularly strong on naïve hosts with limited prior exposure to parasites. Philornis downsi is an introduced fly to the Galapagos Islands whose parasitic larvae cause high mortality in nestlings of Darwin's finches. We used a within-nest camera system and nest monitoring data to examine this new host–parasite interaction in the wild. Many P. downsi flies entered finch nests with incubated eggs or nestlings but only when parent finches were not present. Parasitic P. downsi larvae were observed to emerge from the nest base at night to feed both internally and externally on nestlings. Adult and nestling Darwin’s finches exhibit grooming and avoidance behaviours in the presence of P. downsi parasites. Specifically, in nests with high parasite intensity, nestlings increased self-preening behaviour, ate larvae and stood on top of one another. Female finches probed into their nestling’s nares (first instar larvae reside in the nares) and probed into the nest base (second and third larvae reside in the nest base during the day). These findings shed light on the emergence of anti-parasite behaviour as well as host–parasite relationships after recent parasitism in a naïve host.

The Galapagos Archipelago is renowned for its high endemism but little effort has been made to quantify the human disturbance that compromises the islands' ecological integrity. We provide a quantitative assessment of anthropogenic degradation, which we define as areas either transformed by direct human activity or heavily invaded by four of the most prevalent alien plant species (Psidium guajava, Rubus niveus, Cinchona pubescens and Syzygium jambos). We assessed how the amount of degraded area varied among the six major vegetation zones (bare ground, littoral, arid, transition, humid and very humid) across five inhabited or formerly inhabited islands. Overall, we found that 37,833 ha (5.5%) of the Archipelago have been completely degraded. The islands that have suffered the greatest human impact (13,000–14,000 ha each) are Santa Cruz (the most populous) and Isabela (the largest). When vegetation type is considered the humid and very humid vegetation zones have been most affected by humans (29 and 45%, respectively). On San Cristobal and Santa Cruz 100 and 76%, respectively, of the very humid zone and 94 and 88%, respectively, of the humid zone have been transformed. These results are underestimations as mapping of the anthropogenic change in some vegetation zones (e.g. on Floreana) is poor, and the analysis did not take into account the effects of introduced animals. Nevertheless, this research points to an urgent need to prioritize restoration efforts in humid and very humid vegetation zones and to improve spatial mapping across the Archipelago to obtain a better understanding of the impacts of humans.