Eucharitidae new to the fauna of Saudi Arabia (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea), with the description of a new species and the previously unknown male of Eucharis (Psilogastrellus) albipennis Bouček

The present study summarizes additions to the known fauna of Eucharitidae of Saudi Arabia. Cherianella arabica Gadallah &; Soliman sp. nov. and the male of previously known female Eucharis (Psilogastrellus) albipennis Bou?ek, 1956 are described and illustrated. Three new records are also added to the fauna of Saudi Arabia: Eucharis (Eucharisca) intermedia Ruschka, 1924, Eucharis (Psilogastrellus) acuminata Ruschka, 1924 and Eucharis (Psilogastrellus) punctata Förster, 1859.

http:/zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:F1B1C493-AA83-4696-AF8B-3B3F62C09B41     

Cladocera and Copepoda of Shokalsky Island: new data from northwest Siberia

Information on the freshwater fauna of the remote Arctic territories is very patchy, and most of the isolated islands of the Arctic Ocean remain absolutely unexplored. The pioneer data on the species composition of microcrustaceans of Shokalsky Island (northwest Siberia, Russia) is reported here. The initial three-year research revealed a total of 31 new for the area species of Cladocera and Copepoda, including new records for the whole of northwestern Siberia. Comparing the interannual differences in faunal composition, we suggested the hypothesis of the existence of a cryptic pool of species’ resting stages, which can invade the community in the event of favourable environmental conditions in the Arctic freshwaters. We also compiled all the available data from different parts of northern Siberia and compared them with the fauna of Shokalsky Island to analyse the connection between the diversity and distributional patterns of copepods and cladoceran species and the climate conditions of different territories.     

Can We Predict the Financial Markets Based on Google's Search Queries?

We look into the interaction of Google's search queries and several aspects of international equity markets. Using a novel methodology for selecting words and a vector autoregressive modeling approach, we study whether the search queries of finance‐related words can have an impact on returns, volatility of returns and traded volume in four different English‐speaking countries. We identify several words whose search frequency is associated with changes in the dependent variables. In particular, we find that increases in search queries including the word stock predict increased volatility and decreased index returns over the next week. On top of that, we investigate the performance of a market‐timing strategy based on the search frequency of this word and benchmark it against random words from the Word‐Net database and a naive buy‐and‐hold strategy. The results of this empirical application are positive and particularly stronger during the global crisis of 2009. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Genome-wide association studies of 14 agronomic traits in rice landraces

Uncovering the genetic basis of agronomic traits in crop landraces that have adapted to various agro-climatic conditions is important to world food security. Here we have identified ～ 3.6 million SNPs by sequencing 517 rice landraces and constructed a high-density haplotype map of the rice genome using a novel data-imputation method. We performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for 14 agronomic traits in the population of Oryza sativa indica subspecies. The loci identified through GWAS explained ～ 36% of the phenotypic variance, on average. The peak signals at six loci were tied closely to previously identified genes. This study provides a fundamental resource for rice genetics research and breeding, and demonstrates that an approach integrating second-generation genome sequencing and GWAS can be used as a powerful complementary strategy to classical biparental cross-mapping for dissecting complex traits in rice.