Apterygota is the paraphyletic group traditionally including the primitively wingless insects Zygentoma (silverfish) and Archaeognatha (bristletails), along with the three other classes of Hexapoda: Collembola (springtails), Diplura (two-pronged bristletails) and Protura (coneheads).
While the activities of the Apterygota section focus on Collembola, their wingless allies are also welcome within our walls.
The Apterygota section conduct a persistent taxonomic effort to discover and describe the rich diversity of Collembola. A special focus is given to some of the smallest of them, belonging to the order Neelipleona, all around the world. We establish modern workflow to support this fundamental activity, combining thorough morphological study, “extended” DNA barcoding using longe-range PCR and Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencing, digital drawings and slide digitizations.
Furthermore, we are using cutting-edge de-novo genome sequencing technologies to provide insight into the genomic basis of Collembola evolution and adaptations.
We are adapting computer vision approaches to assist the analyses of soil mesofauna communities and to assists with the digitization of vast collection of tiny animals in ethanol, such as the Collembola and Protura specimens that make up the majority of the Apterygota collection in Senckenberg Görlitz.
We develop an automatic macrophotography platform to capture the content of petri dishes in high definition. We also develop a deep-learning application to assist in the creation of object-detectors and classifiers that can automatically count and classify the animals on pictures (https://github.com/stasys-hub/Collembola_AI).
CollembolAI is under active development. We aim at creating machine-learning models that will recognize the major groups of Collembola (being our core expertise) but also the major groups of soil invertebrates. We also aim at bringing computer vision and molecular techniques together in order to create an efficient pipeline to characterize soil communities species diversity, species abundances and biomass, and species morphology.
CollembolAI is developed in collaboration with Stanislav Sys, Stephan Weißbach and Prof. Dr. Susanne Gerber, Institute of Human Genetics, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
From 14th to 18th of October 2016 soil and moss samples were taken again from a total of 17 sites of the Harz. All samples were selected using an expedition Berlese device. In the foreground of these investigations stood 2 bolder fields and sites in older deciduous forests. The determination of the whole material will start in January 2017.
In the seventies and eighties of the last century Arne Fjellberg und Willem N. Ellis collected springtails within many locations of the Canary Islands. They mainly took mosses of rocks, litter layers or netted from vegetation (e. g. meadows). A part of these collected springtails samples Dr. Fjellberg gave kindly our section Apterygota. These undetermined materials were and will currently determine.
Within the Fauna Europaea (last update 29 August 2013) 103 (sub) species are listed for the Canary Islands. Already the first determinations yielded some new records; e. g. Sminthurus hispanicus Nayrolles, 1995, Desoria trispinata (MacGillivray, 1896) and Caprainea bremondi (Delamare Deboutteville & Bassot, 1957). Remarkable is also the again record of Mesogastrura libyca (Caroli, 1914) from Tenerife.
Samples of the Dubring bog from 2012 were determiniert. These samples resulted in altogether 50 species. Besides of many hydrophilic species three tyrphobiotic species were found (Ceratophysella scotica (Carpenter & Evans, 1899), Neelides minutus (Folsom, 1901) and Pachyotoma crassicauda (Tullberg, 1871)).
Furthermore the examination of extensive samples from the Sernitz bog project of Dr. Ricarda Lehmitz (Section Oribatida ) started. With Neelides minutes and Pachyotoma crassicauda also two tyrphobiotic species were already recorded. Above all 4 collecting dates were analyzed (July, October 2013, November 2015 and April 2016). Within these samples 49 species were found (7419 specimens).
The forest reserve ‘Locheiche’ is a part of the national park ‘Edersee-Kellerwald’. This region is characterized by old large-scale beech forests. The soil and moss samples (more than 100 of nearly 50cm3 volumes) were taken in March, May and September 2009 within a grid-based sampling design of the Locheiche woodland.
Nearly 10 000 specimens were collected and resulted in 44 species (preparation and determination from May to July 2016). The majority of the recorded species are eurytopic, but also some typical forest inhabitants were found (e.g. Desoria violacea, Lipothrix lubbocki, Micraphorura absoloni and Willemia denisi). Furthermore characteristic dwellers of moss/lichens on rocks and trees were found: Anurophorus laricis, Pseudisotoma sensibilis and Xenylla boerneri. Most frequent within the soil samples were Mesaphorura macrochaeta and Parisotoma notabilis.
The Senckenberg collection of Apterygota was established in 1959 by Prof. Dr. Wolfram Dunger. Since 1987, Dr. Hans-Jürgen Schulz has continued the collection, with a focus on Palaearctic Collembola species. A noteworthy part of the collection are the Symphypleona gathered by Dr. Gerhard Bretfeld (Zoological Institute of the University of Kiel), an outstanding specialist of those beautiful globular springtails. Dr. Bretfeld collection was entrusted to the SMNG in 2007 and includes valuable holo- and paratypes from Israel, Yemen, South Africa, Colombia, Russia, and many European countries, either preserved in alcohol or mounted on permanent slides.
Since 2021, Dr. Clément Schneider lead the continuation and modernization of the collection, with an emphasis on digitization and on linking the preserved phenotypes with genotype; and a special expertise on the order Neelipleona.
The ethanol collection comprises an estimated 5 million individuals, of which 1.1 million have been identified. It represents a valuable archive of Collembola biodiversity samples from the 20th century. Since 2021 and onward, the new entries are stored with care for the long term preservation of the DNA.
The slide collection includes approximately 13,400 microscope slide preparations.
Altogether, the collection preserves more than 1,000 species and 220 type specimens (including 60 primary types).
The living collection (breedings) is a new establishment aiming at keeping model and non-model species of Collembola both for education and for experimental research purposes. Our current tenants are Orthonychiurus stachianus, Sinella curviseta, Proisotoma minuta, Parisotoma notabilis, Ceratophysella denticulata, Pseudosinella alba, Folsomides angularis, and the infamous Folsomia candida
The literature database contains over 8,100 reprints, primarily focused on taxonomic work on Palaearctic Collembola.
