Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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Author: search.filters.author.Morgan-Richards MSubject: search.filters.subject.Aotearoa

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    A new species of Celatoblatta cockroach that coincides with the distribution of kauri forests in New Zealand
    (Taylor and Francis Group on behalf of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 2025-07-16) Morgan-Richards M; Trewick SA
    A new species of Blattidae cockroach is described from northern Aotearoa New Zealand. Celatoblatta kauri sp. nov. can be distinguished from similar conspecific species by its distinctive facial markings. The recorded distribution of Celatoblatta kauri sp. nov. matches that of the historic distribution of kauri forest (Agathis australis) in northern New Zealand. Zoobank LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:93794424-1A7B-4CCA-A7A1-A303BCE8EACA.
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    Insect Freeze-Tolerance Downunder: The Microbial Connection
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2023-01-13) Morgan-Richards M; Marshall CJ; Biggs PJ; Trewick SA; Hoffmann KH
    Insects that are freeze-tolerant start freezing at high sub-zero temperatures and produce small ice crystals. They do this using ice-nucleating agents that facilitate intercellular ice growth and prevent formation of large crystals where they can damage tissues. In Aotearoa/New Zealand the majority of cold adapted invertebrates studied survive freezing at any time of year, with ice formation beginning in the rich microbiome of the gut. Some freeze-tolerant insects are known to host symbiotic bacteria and/or fungi that produce ice-nucleating agents and we speculate that gut microbes of many New Zealand insects may provide ice-nucleating active compounds that moderate freezing. We consider too the possibility that evolutionary disparate freeze-tolerant insect species share gut microbes that are a source of ice-nucleating agents and so we describe potential transmission pathways of shared gut fauna. Despite more than 30 years of research into the freeze-tolerant mechanisms of Southern Hemisphere insects, the role of exogenous ice-nucleating agents has been neglected. Key traits of three New Zealand freeze-tolerant lineages are considered in light of the supercooling point (temperature of ice crystal formation) of microbial ice-nucleating particles, the initiation site of freezing, and the implications for invertebrate parasites. We outline approaches that could be used to investigate potential sources of ice-nucleating agents in freeze-tolerant insects and the tools employed to study insect microbiomes.