Microlepidoptera of the Natura 2000 area Wydmy Lucynowsko - Mostowieckie: new faunistic records and biological insights on Chionodes distinctella (Zeller, 1839)

It is well known that butterflies are valuable indicators of environmental quality, given their existence in various habitats. Collecting and regularly updating data on species richness, abundance, and distribution of all butterfly species in the country is crucial for effective monitoring and conservation efforts, which can ultimately help minimise biodiversity losses. Since the last publication of the Georgian butterfly list, there have been numerous reports registering taxonomic revisions, nomenclatural changes or providing several new butterfly "cryptic species" based on genetic research. In the following article, based on a review of various sources of data, including existing literature and new, unpublished data, we present an annotated regional checklist of butterflies of Georgia, a country that is a part of the Caucasus ecoregion representing one of 36 biodiversity "hotspots". A database with all reported species for Georgia was created by compiling information from critical reviews of all available literature reports, records submitted by contributors of three websites dedicated to butterfly fauna, and data deposited in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) database. Various specialised sources were used to extract vernacular species names (Georgian, Russian and English). The updated list of butterflies from Georgia includes 244 species of the superfamily Papilionoidea recorded from almost 600 different locations. Nearly 25% of the 244 species were considered rare and extremely rare, while at the same time being at risk of potential extinction. For each species, we present brief phenological information, distribution in Georgia/Caucasus, occurrence status in each region of the country, thumbnails (ventral and dorsal view), as well as a list of vernacular names in Georgian, Russian and English. Regarding species that are reported in the literature as new, uncertain, or questionable in Georgia, we provide the relevant comments. In comparison to the other republics of Transcaucasia (Armenia, Azerbaijan), we noted a similar number of species. Our studies provide a robust baseline of data for further exploration of the Lepidoptera fauna of Georgia. This foundation should help to fill in the gaps in knowledge regarding regional species distribution, phenology, and habitat requirements.

Songbirds that occur across the diverse types of North American rangelands constitute many families within the Order Passeriformes, and hundreds of species. Most are declining, and many are considered potential indicator species for rangeland ecosystems. We synthesized information on the natural and life history, habitat requirements, conservation status, and responses to management of songbirds associated with North American grasslands and sagebrush steppe, two of the most geographically extensive types of rangelands. We provide a more targeted examination of the habitat associations and management considerations for two focal species, the grassland-obligate grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum) and sagebrush-obligate Brewer’s sparrow (Spizella breweri). Grassland- and sagebrush-obligate species rely on expansive stands of grasslands and sagebrush, respectively, and we discuss how key ecological processes and rangeland management approaches—grazing, fire, and mechanical treatments—influence rangeland songbirds. Rangeland management practices can affect breeding songbirds considerably, primarily through the resultant structure and composition of vegetation, which influences the availability of preferred nesting substrates, refugia from predators, and foraging success. Optimal management strategies to limit negative consequences to rangeland songbirds will depend on the target species and local topoedaphic and climatic conditions. The maintenance of large, contiguous patches of native habitats and restoration of previously degraded areas will help facilitate the population persistence of rangeland-associated songbirds. Maintaining structural heterogeneity of habitats within landscapes, moreover, can facilitate local species diversity. Information pertaining to periods outside of the nesting stage is severely lacking for most species, which is concerning because effective management necessitates understanding of threats and limiting factors across the full annual life cycle. Moreover, information on disease effects and prevalence, the effects of a changing climate, and how both may interact with management strategies, also comprise key gaps in knowledge.

Recent work in landscape ecology suggests that organisms use environmental cues at a variety of scales to select habitat. As a result, habitat studies that evaluate environmental conditions at multiple spatial scales have become increasingly common. We examined whether the way in which data are rescaled influences inferred relationships between organisms and habitat features. Using a habitat model developed at fine scales, we systematically rescaled habitat (canopy density, slope, and cover type) and distribution maps according to a variety of different rescaling rules, including spatial averaging, thresholding, presence/absence, and majority. We found that the spatial autocorrelation of habitat data interacts with rescaling rules to alter the correspondence between species presence and habitat across scale. Different rules lead to substantially divergent and sometimes opposite correlations among the species and habitat features on the landscape. Such differences in interpretation due to variation in methodology can lead to very different interpretations of a species’ habitat requirements and thus have important implications for both ecology and conservation.

Quantifying responses of aquatic insects to environmental change

: The ICBG Associate Program for Biodiversity Inventory and Monitoring, Conservation and Training (APi) is composed of three organizations: Smithsonian Institution's Monitoring and Assessing Biodiversity Program (SI/NAB), Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) and the Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme. Through APi - SI/NAB proposed to accomplish the following long-term objectives: I) building in-country capacity through a series of training courses, 2) expanding the network of biodiversity plots in Cameroon and Nigeria, and 3) collecting temporal data from previously established NAG sites. CTFS concurrently proposed to build upon the work, which has been accomplished and initiated at the Korup Forest Dynamic Plot (KFDP). Over the past five years of funding CTFS accomplished the following tasks: 1) establishment of the 50-Heactare Korup Forest Dynamics Plot in the Korup National Park, 2) complete enumeration, identification, and measurement of approximately 500 species, over 320,000 individual trees, 3) completion of a liana census including over 7,000 individuals (286 species) with 10-ha of the KFDP, and 4) conducted phenology and seeding studies. Both SI/NAB and CTFS enhanced the infrastructure of local organizations by providing funds to local scientists so that they may participate in various training courses. Our specific aims were to continue inventory and forest dynamics research at the large-scale (50-ha.) permanent forest plot in Korup National Park of Cameroon as well as expand the network of 1-ha. Biodiversity plots established in Nigeria and Cameroon. The large-scale plot data effectively addresses the basic biological questions as well as biodiversity monitoring, biomass monitoring, conservation, silviculture, reforestation, ethnobotany, carbon sequestration, climate change, fragmentation, and disturbance by human populations. The 1-ha. Biodiversity plots provide data for mapping regional species distributions and beta diversity. 7

There are several reasons for conducting a habitat analysis and identifying the environmental (habitat) characteristics that a species associates with. (1) Knowledge of a species’ habitat requirements is crucial in restoring and managing habitat for the species. (2) Carrying capacity informs us about the potential (or lack thereof) for future population growth based on resource availability. Knowledge of a species’ habitat requirements allows us to interpret the importance of carrying capacity in a habitat-specific way. (3) The study of species interactions and the potential for species coexistence is supported by having knowledge of the habitat of each species under investigation. (4) Habitat preference and selection as eco-evolutionary processes continue to be widely studied by ecologists—interpretation of the results of such studies is best done with knowledge of the species–habitat associations. Such knowledge can also be useful in the design of preference and selection studies. (5) Knowledge of species–habitat associations can also be of great use in selecting the environmental variables to use in species distribution models. All five of these goals point to the great utility of conducting a habitat analysis as a supporting investigation or as a way to obtain knowledge to put to a practical purpose.

Evaluating environmental policies creates opportunities for harmonising and refining their implementation using a heuristic approach, and considering the knowledge gaps in understanding the complex environmental processes. The European Union’s (EU) Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is an ambitious legislation that brings together state, pressure, and impact Descriptors of the marine environment, and is built on an ecosystem-based approach to management. Ultimately, the Directive aims to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) and sustainable use of marine resources. The EU Member States’ (MS) reporting obligations for biodiversity monitoring were evaluated, to produce the first EU-wide overview of how monitoring programmes across EU waters are organised. Marine biodiversity monitoring is essential for the management of anthropogenic activities that affect the state of marine ecosystems, to support the understanding of complex marine systems, to determine GES, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the established measures. The EU MS put great effort into adapting their established biodiversity monitoring activities for the existing policy requirements, and to plan new monitoring programmes from the emerging needs of this ambitious policy. The monitoring reports provide a unique source of information, and this evaluation could lead to improve MS’ reporting, and harmonise implementation of the policy. Moreover, the evaluation provides a basis for sharing good practices, innovative monitoring standards, and developing joint monitoring programmes that could greatly facilitate the establishment of cost-efficient and accurate monitoring. As such, the recommendations from this policy evaluation could be relevant to any environmental management framework worldwide.

Can biodiversity monitoring schemes provide indicators for ecosystem services?

The coastal forests of Kenya are global biodiversity hotspots known for rich plant diversity and endemism. They exist as fragmented forest islands, and their current conservation status and quantitative trends in plant diversity are understudied. We investigated these knowledge gaps by providing a comprehensive literature review and comparing to field data collected using standardized sampling protocol. Our goals were to build a robust basis for future analyses, biodiversity monitoring, and to understand the role of fragment area in determining species richness. We recorded a total of 937 woody species belonging to 88 families in 30 forest patches from reviewed and sampled data. Species richness per site from literature review was affected by biases in data scarcity, forest size and variation in sampling methods. In general, large forests reserves of Shimba hills and Arabuko exhibited a high number of cumulative species compared to smaller forest patches. Species-area relationship showed a significant proportion of species richness per forest was determined by forest area, according to Arrhenius model. This study is the first to review forest patch woody plant species diversity knowledge gaps in the coastal forests of Kenya, and the resulting comparison provides the first quantitative overview and foundation of these forests.

With the widespread decline and endangerment of freshwater fishes, there is a need to clearly define habitat requirements for effective species management and habitat restoration. Fish biologists often infer habitat requirements on the basis of correlative habitat associations in the wild. This generates descriptive models that predict species presence or abundance at a hierarchy of scales: distributional (macrohabitat) models predict the presence/absence of species at large scales, capacity models predict the abundance at the reach or channel unit scale when a species is present, and microhabitat models predict the distribution of individual fish at smaller spatial scales (e.g., instream habitat suitability curves for velocity, depth, and substrate). However, relationships based on habitat associations in the wild rarely give definitive insight into the absolute requirement for a particular habitat (i.e., necessity of a habitat for the persistence of individuals and populations). The assumption that habitat selection accurately reflects the fitness consequences of habitat use is rarely validated; more rigorous assessment of habitat requirement usually involves manipulative experiments or measurements of fitness (individual growth, survival, or reproductive success) in different habitat types. Bioenergetic habitat models offer a promising mechanistic alternative to correlative habitat suitability models for drift-feeding fish and have the potential to predict habitat-specific growth rates on the basis of swimming costs and energy intake. Once smaller-scale habitat requirements of individuals are well defined, the final step is to determine when and how the requirements of individuals limit populations. Extrapolating smaller-scale habitat requirements to the population level requires either large-scale (ecosystem) manipulations of habitat, adaptive management, or habitat-explicit population models. For species with distinct ontogenic shifts in habitat requirements, the concept of optimal habitat ratios may be useful for identifying limiting habitat factors and defining baselines for habitat restoration. Defining optimal habitat configurations for different species may also provide a basis for predicting how habitat change differentially affects species with contrasting habitat needs.

BackgroundOceanic islands are globally recognised for their exceptional levels of biodiversity and endemism, often resulting from unique evolutionary processes in isolated environments. However, this biodiversity is also disproportionately threatened by anthropogenic pressures including habitat loss, invasive species and climate change. Targeted, long-term biodiversity monitoring is essential for detecting changes in these vulnerable ecosystems and providing information for conservation strategies.The EU BIODIVERSA + project BioMonI aims at building a global long-term monitoring network specifically tailored to the pressing needs of biodiversity conservation and monitoring on islands. In BioMonI, we use a novel approach that considers mapping previous and current monitoring schemes on islands, developing a harmonised monitoring scheme for island biodiversity and mobilising existing monitoring data. We are assembling data from BioMonI-Plot, a long-term vegetation plot network to understand biodiversity and ecosystem change. It will use baseline data from three focal archipelagos (Azores, Canary Islands and Mascarenes), but we aim to mobilise data from archipelagos worldwide.Plot-based data are a cornerstone of effective biodiversity monitoring on islands. These standardised data collections within permanent plots allow for consistent, replicable observations across temporal and spatial scales. Initiatives like the Global Island Monitoring Scheme (GIMS) highlight the value of permanent plots in capturing ecological gradients and anthropogenic disturbance patterns. Such data underpin the detection of subtle shifts in community composition, functional diversity and species distributions, which are critical for assessing the effectiveness of conservation actions and predicting future ecological scenarios.In summary, plot-based data are indispensable for targeted and effective biodiversity monitoring on islands. They provide the empirical backbone necessary to provide information for adaptive management strategies and contribute to global biodiversity targets.New informationThe BioMonI-Plot baseline data consist of 10 plots in each of the following islands: Terceira (Azores), Tenerife (Canaries) and Réunion Island (Mascarenes). As a first step, we describe the diversity and abundance of all woody species shoots with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 1 cm in each of the 10 plots of each Island. The majority of taxa belonged to the phylum Magnoliophyta, which accounted for 96.66% of the total species and subspecies, followed by Pteridophyta (2.22%) and Pinophyta (1.11%). Réunion Island exhibited the highest species richness, with 66 identified taxa, followed by Tenerife (16 taxa) and Terceira (11 taxa). Only one species, Morellafaya, was shared between the islands, occurring in both Terceira and Tenerife. Most of the recorded species were classified as endemic according to their colonisation status. Specifically, 32 species were endemic to the Mascarene Islands, 22 to Réunion, nine to the Azores, eleven to Macaronesia and four to the Canary Islands.The data presented in this Data Paper provide a valuable proxy for evaluating the ecological integrity and overall habitat quality of native montane forests across three oceanic archipelagos: the Azores, Canary Islands and Mascarene Islands. By focusing on tree species as primary ecological indicators, the dataset offers insights into essential structural and compositional attributes of these ecosystems, including species richness, relative abundance and patterns of dominance.The comprehensive species-level information contained in this dataset allows for comparisons of forest composition across islands and biogeographic regions, contributing to our understanding of insular forest dynamics, endemism patterns and conservation priorities in tropical and subtropical montane environments.

Biodiversity monitoring plays an essential role in tracking changes in ecosystems, species distributions and abundances across the globe. Data collected through both structured and unstructured biodiversity recording can inform conservation measures designed to reduce, prevent, and reverse declines in valued biodiversity of many types. However, given that resources for biodiversity monitoring are limited, it is important that funding bodies prioritise investments relative to the requirements in any given region. We addressed this prioritisation requirement for a biodiverse Mediterranean island (Cyprus) using a three-stage process of expert-elicitation. This resulted in a structured list of twenty biodiversity monitoring needs; specifically, a hierarchy of three groups of these needs was created using a consensus approach. The most highly prioritised biodiversity monitoring needs were those related to the development of robust survey methodologies, and those ensuring that sufficiently skilled citizens are available to contribute. We discuss ways that the results of our expert-elicitation process could be used to support current and future biodiversity monitoring in Cyprus.

Up to now, 24 ant species have been collected during field studies along a southern African transect in Namibia and South Africa as part of the BIOTA project - Biodiversity Monitoring Transect Analysis in Africa. Some of these, Ocymyrmex hirsutus, O. resekhes, Tetramorium erectum, Meranoplus glaber, and M. magrettii were recorded for the first time in Namibia. For other species the occurrence in specific habitat types was confirmed. A summary of relevant morphological and ecological characteristics of each species is given. For each genus an example is illustrated. This study assesses the value of ants for biodiversity monitoring in southern Africa. Ants are particularly suited for monitoring approaches, because of their high abundance and species diversity, regular occurrence throughout the year as well as nest stability. Problems may arise from the unconsolidated biosystematic status in some genera, namely Tapinoma and Pachycondyla, and the lack of detailed information for many species on their habitat requirements.

This study provides empirical assessments of the magnitude of human pressures on forest habitat in Jamaica's Hellshire Hills. The Hellshire Hills represents an outstanding example of the Caribbean region's dry limestone forests. Approximately 160 km2 in area, the Hellshire Hills is home to a unique and rich biodiversity, including the critically endangered Jamaican Iguana (Cylcura collei). The area's biodiversity is under increasing threat from deforestation from subsistence driven encroachment. Using deforestation as a spatial indicator of habitat loss, the study derives satellite based estimates of the rate of habitat destruction within and immediately outside the area. The underlying human driving forces in this destruction are analyzed in a regression analysis of key socio-economic indicators that adusts for these locational differences. Results suggest that immiserating pressures on species habitat, particularly outside the area, are greater than anywhere else on the island. Simulations of species loss and edge-induced disturbances to species habitat also indicate that the potential impacts of forest conversion may be substantial and extend well beyond the area's boundaries. Together, the study's results highlight the intrinsic vulnerablity of the Hellshire Hills to outside disturbance. In particular, they raise doubts about the potential of the area (which has been accorded protected status within the recently established Portland Bight Protected Area) to provide for the long-term preservation and viability of the area's species. It is concluded that appropriate reserve design and species protection will require the collection of detailed empirical data on species diversity, numbers, habitat requirements, and spatial distribution. However, before this information can be collected priorities for biodiversity conservation must be set. Costs and benefits of conversation must also be assessed within the overall context of an integrated rural development plan for the area.

Biodiversity monitoring is key for understanding the delivery of ecosystem functions and services. Mediterranean forests and woodlands harbor many characteristic species of the Mediterranean vascular flora, and hence, they are a good surrogate for detecting changes in biodiversity linked to global change. In this work, we present a database resulting from the study of vascular plant diversity in multi-scale plots of 0.1 ha, measured around the first decade of this century and located in Mediterranean forest environments. Diversity profiles are calculated from Hill numbers (0, 1 and 2) for local (α) and regional (ϒ) diversity, as well as a multiplicative calculation of differential diversity (β). The main Mediterranean forests sampled had a medium coverage of 51% and stand dominant height of 10.6 m, and they were monospecific in two-thirds of cases. Local diversity reaches its highest values (around 78 species per 0.1 ha) in Holm oak dehesas, with values below 50 species for the most productive forest stands dominated by species of the genus Pinus. As regards the contribution to regional diversity, broadleaf formations contribute the most, with stone pine forests and dehesas in an intermediate position, and pine forests contributing the lowest in species richness terms.