China’s Hengduan Mountain region has been considered one of the most diverse regions in the northern hemisphere. Its stunning topography with many deep valleys and impassable mountain barriers has promoted an astonishing diversification in many groups of organisms including plants, birds, mammals, and amphibians. However, the insect biodiversity in this region is still poorly known. Here, the first checklist of ant species from the Southern Hengduan Mountain region is presented, generated by sampling ant diversity using a wide array of collection methods, including Winkler leaf litter extraction, vegetation beating, and hand collection. 130 species/morphospecies from nine subfamilies and 49 genera were identified. Among them, 17 species from 13 genera represent new records for Yunnan province, and eight species are newly recorded for China. Moreover, we believe 41 novel morphospecies (31% of the total collected taxa) will prove to be new to science. These results highlight the rich ant fauna of this region and strongly support its status as a biodiversity hotspot. The current ant species checklist for the whole of Yunnan Province was updated by recording 550 named species from 99 genera. Taken together, our results suggest that the Yunnan ant fauna still remains under-sampled, and future sampling will likely yield many more species, among them many undescribed ones.

Avocado root rot, driven by soil-borne fungi such as Fusarium spp., poses a major challenge to global avocado production. The rhizosphere microbiome is critical for plant health, yet the impact of root rot on bacterial community structure and its implications for disease management remain poorly understood. Here, we combined culture-independent 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing with culture-dependent isolation to characterize bacterial communities in healthy and Fusarium-infested avocado bulk and rhizosphere soils. Key beneficial taxa, notably Bacillus, were then isolated and evaluated for their antagonistic potential. Results showed that root rot significantly reduced rhizosphere bacterial α-diversity, altered community structure, and depleted phyla such as Actinobacteriota and Firmicutes that contain beneficial taxa. Beneficial genera such as Bacillus and Streptomyces declined, while cultivable Fusarium counts increased. Negative correlations between Fusarium abundance, the bacteria-to-fungi ratio, and the relative abundance of beneficial bacteria further underscore their suppressive role. Guided by these findings, we isolated Bacillus strain NB92, identified as Bacillus siamensis through morphological, biochemical, and 16S rRNA and gyrA gene analyses. NB92 exhibited strong antagonistic activity against the root rot pathogen (Fusarium sp. St7) via both direct antagonism and volatile organic compound production. Inoculating NB92 into diseased rhizosphere soil boosted Bacillus counts and reduced Fusarium abundance. Moreover, NB92 effectively inhibited the pathogen’s necrotizing ability. B. siamensis NB92 thus represents a promising, sustainable biocontrol agent and contributes to the development of microbiome-based strategies for managing avocado root rot.

To determine the grasshopper species composition, altitudinal distribution patterns, and their main drivers, we conducted a study in Xizang using 33 sample plots ranging from 600 to 4100 m. Grasshoppers were collected from August to October during 2020–2022 using sweep nets. A total of 1159 grasshoppers from six families, 28 genera, and 44 species were identified, with Omocestus cuonaensis and Aserratus eminifrontus as the dominant species, comprising 30.03% and 10.26% of total grasshoppers, respectively. The results showed that species richness and the Margalef richness index of grasshopper communities decreased significantly (p < 0.05) with increasing altitude, peaking at 1100–1600 m and lowest values at 2600–3100 m. Similarly, the Shannon–Wiener index and Simpson dominance index also decreased significantly (p < 0.05) with an increase in altitude, showing the highest and lowest values at 600–1100 m and 3100–3600 m, respectively. The Jaccard similarity coefficients among grasshopper communities varied from 0 to 0.40 across altitudinal gradients, indicating different degrees of dissimilarity. The results of Pearson correlation analyses showed that the Shannon–Wiener index, species richness, Margalef richness index, and Simpson dominance index of grasshopper communities were significantly negatively correlated with the temperature factors and soil pH, but they were significantly positively correlated with the moisture factors. Hierarchical partitioning identified annual mean temperature–daily difference, precipitation in the coldest season, and driest month precipitation as the primary factors explaining variance in grasshopper community diversity in Xizang. These findings provided greater insights into the mechanisms underlying insect community structure, distribution patterns, and diversity in Xizang ecosystems, including implications for the effects of global warming on insect communities.

This paper reports three new species of the genus Phlugiolopsis from Yunnan, China, i.e. Phlugiolopsis expansis sp. nov., Phlugiolopsis bidentis sp. nov. and Phlugiolopsis curvis sp. nov. Examined specimens are deposited in the Museum of Hebei University.

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Artocarpus petelotii was determined, a narrowly distributed species at high altitudes in the family Moraceae. To better determine its phylogenetic location with respect to the other Moraceae species, the complete plastid genome of A. petelotii was sequenced. The whole chloroplast genome is 161,009 bp in length, consisting of a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions of 25,682 bp, one large single-copy (LSC) region of 89,552 bp, and one small single-copy (SSC) region of 20,093 bp. The overall GC content of the whole chloroplast genome is 35.8%. Further, maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis was conducted using 26 complete plastomes of the Moraceae, which support close relationships among A. petelotii, A. nanchuanensis and A. heterophyllus.

Two new species of the genus Nigrimacula Shi, Bian & Zhou, 2016 Shi FM , Bian X , Zhou ZJ . 2016. Comments on the status of Xiphidiopsis quadrinotata Bey-Bienko, 1971 and related species with one new genus and species (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Meconematinae). Zootaxa. 4105(4):353–367. doi:https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4105.4.4. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] from Yunnan, China, are described, i.e. Nigrimacula laminata Cui, Liu & Shi sp. nov. and Nigrimacula inlobata Cui, Liu & Shi sp. nov. The descriptions are supplemented by detailed images of external morphology A key to all species of the genus is given. The type specimens are deposited in the Museum of Hebei University, Baoding, P. R. China. http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:93CB578C-97B6-4FCA-B492-FBE09E6A99ED