Ants are among the most diverse, abundant and ecologically significant organisms on earth. Although their species richness appears to be greatest in the New World tropics, global patterns of ant diversity and distribution are not well understood. We comprehensively surveyed ant diversity in a lowland primary rainforest in Western Amazonia, Ecuador using canopy fogging, pitfall traps, baits, han...

The tuco-tuco Ctenomys aff. knighti is a subterranean rodent which inhabits a semi-arid area in Northwestern Argentina. Although they live in underground burrows where environmental cycles are attenuated, they display robust, 24 h locomotor activity rhythms that are synchronized by light/dark cycles, both in laboratory and field conditions. The underground environment also poses energetic chall...

1. Sympatric species are expected to exhibit specialisation that reduces interspecific competition in environments with food resources that exhibit little spatial or temporal variation in availability, while sympatric species in more unpredictable environments should exhibit generalised feeding strategies to exploit a wide range of variable resources. 2. We combined stable isotopes and quantita...

Circadian rhythms are regarded as essentially ubiquitous features of animal behavior and are thought to confer important adaptive advantages. However, although circadian systems of rodents have been among the most extensively studied, most comparative biology is restricted to a few related species. In this study, the circadian organization of locomotor activity was studied in the subterranean, ...

Behavioral tests of absolute sensitivity and sound localization in African naked mole rats show that, despite their communal social structure and large vocal repertoire, their hearing has degenerated much like that of other subterranean species. First, their ability to detect sound is limited, with their maximum sensitivity being only 35 dB (occurring at 4 kHz). Second, their high-frequency hea...

Here, we report the draft genome sequence of Geobacillus thermoleovorans strain B23, which was isolated from a deep subterranean petroleum reservoir in Japan. An array of genes related to unique long-chain alkane degradation pathways in G. thermoleovorans B23 has been identified by whole-genome analyses of this strain.

Troglobitic (exclusively subterranean) organisms usually present, among their apomorphies related to the subterranean life (troglomorphisms), the regression of eyes and melanic pigmentation. The degree of regression varies among species, from a slight reduction to the complete loss of eyes and dark pigmentation, without a taxonomic correlation. While mechanisms of eye reduction have been intens...