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1. Communities across trophic levels, and the functional roles they play, are vital for the sustained provision of ecosystem services. In forest systems, diversification of overstorey composition has been shown to be a key driver of biodiversity, but its influence on across-trophic level relationships remains scarcely known. Species across trophic levels in varied overstorey compositions are also differentially susceptible to fragmentation context. We hypothesise that fragmentation will disrupt community relationships associated with particular overstorey compositions. 2. We test this hypothesis using a tree diversity research platform across 53 deciduous woodland plots in central Belgium. We estimate species' abundances within nine, generally taxonomic, community groups across trophic levels: understorey vegetation; leaf miners and gall formers; woodlice, millipedes; carabid beetles, harvestmen, spiders, birds, bats. We use multiple co-inertia analyses to examine how taxonomic and trophic role community matrices covary across gradients of overstorey composition, via three different tree species diversification pathways, and fragmentation. 3. For all trophic role groups, across all plots, there was at least one significant pairwise comparison. Apart from comparisons involving bats, there was at least one significant pairwise correlation between taxonomic groups too. These results indicate correlated community matrices across trophic levels. Overstorey composition related to community tightness, that is, the level of co-ordinated change among taxonomic and/or trophic role groups as revealed by multiple co-inertia analyses. Notably, diversifying woodlands of beech Fagus sylvatica or red oak Quercus rubra with pedunculate oak Quercus robur correlated with increased taxonomic community tightness. Diversifying pedunculate oak forest stands with other overstorey species related to unchanged community tightness. Evidence was lacking for fragmentation affecting community tightness, singly or by interacting with overstorey composition. 4. Synthesis. Overall, changing tree species composition and fragmentation level affected across-trophic level community relationships differently. Yet, we demonstrated a clear signal that diversifying monoculture stands with particular species correlated with greater community tightness, and co-ordinated change among sets of community groups, across trophic levels and regardless of fragmentation context. We postulate that having tighter community relationships suggests that measures to improve biodiversity at one trophic level (i.e. trees) could affect other groups, and their associated roles, in a co-ordinated manner.

New taxonomic data on the ground spiders of the families Gnaphosidae, Liocranidae and Prodidomidae from the Greek islands Rodos and Symi are presented resulting from extensive field work conducted in 2006. Additional material from Karpathos is also included. In total, 48 species are recorded, and five new species (Drassodes mylonasi Chatzaki sp.n., Echemus kaltsasi Chatzaki sp.n., Minosiella apolakia Chatzaki sp.n., Phaeocedus vankeeri Chatzaki sp.n., and Turkozelotes attavirus Chatzaki sp.n.) are proposed. Although the Gnaphosidae of Cyprus are not the focus of the present paper, the unknown female of Echemus levyi Kovblyuk, 2009 found in Cyprus, is also described here for comparative purposes. Leptodrassex memorialis (Spassky, 1940) is justifiably transferred to the genus Leptopilos Levy, 2009 and it is therefore regarded as Leptopilos memorialis comb.nov. The male of Zelotes daidalus Chatzaki, 2003 and the female of Z. minous Chatzaki, 2003 are newly matched and Z. daidalus is further synonymised with Z. shaked Levy, 1998.The new matching of Z. minous males with Z. daidalus females is justified. Two species are new records for Greece: Zelotes limnatis Chatzaki & Russell-Smith, 2017 and Agraecina scupiensis Deltshev, 2016.

Cithaeron dippenaarae sp. n. is described from both sexes. The species occurs in stony regions in the south of Morocco.

Cheiracanthium rupestre Herman, 1879, and Xysticus albomaculatus Kulczyński, 1891, both originally described from Hungary,are among the most rarely reported species of their genera in Europe. Here we report that both of these species have very close relationshipsto similarly uncommon species originally described from France at about the same time. The specimens currently consideredas Cheiracanthium rupestre turn out to be very closely related to, but distinct from, Cheiracanthium striolatum Simon, 1878. However,the original description of C. rupestre does not match these specimens nor any other known species of Cheiracanthium. We thereforeconsider C. rupestre a nomen dubium and suggest that all previous records of this species after the original description actually refer toCheiracanthium macedonicum Drensky, 1921. Xysticus albomaculatus, on the other hand, turns out to be a junior synonym of Bassanianabaudueri (Simon, 1877) syn. nov., expanding the range of this species considerably to the East and at the same time confirming that it isa genuine European species, rather than a recent immigrant from North America as previously suspected.

Harpactea dufouri (Thorell, 1873) was collected in the Gavarres protected natural area in Catalonia, Spain. The specimens were compared with specimens from Mallorca, Balearic Islands, and found to be conspecific. The female of the species is described here for the first time. The new finding proves that Harpactea dufouri occurs outside the Balearic Islands. The species, however, may be endemic to Catalonia.

Four spitting spider species in the genus Scytodes are recorded from the Maghreb: Scytodes annulipes Simon, 1907, stat. n. (elevated to species rank), S. major Simon, 1885, S. velutina Heineken & Lowe, 1832 and Scytodes seppoi Bosmans & Van Keer, sp. n. The male and female of the latter are described and illustrated. No recent records of the commonly cited S. thoracica (Latreille, 1804) can be provided, so earlier citations are considered to be erroneous. Images, illustrations and new distribution data of the other three known species in the Maghreb are given.

Artanes Thorell, 1870 constitutes a well-defined distal clade within the collective genus Philodromus Walckenaer, 1826 and was assigned to subgeneric rank by Muster (2009). Thereupon Logunov and Kunt (2010) suggested re-elevation of Artanes to genus level, but this proposal is not followed here with reference to the phylogenetic reconstructions presented in Muster (2009). In particular, delineation and synapomorphies of closely related genera and species groups remain to be defined. The west-Palearctic species of the taxon have recently been revised to comprise seven Mediterranean endemics and five more widespread species (Muster 2009). A further species from Turkey was described by Logunov and Kunt (2010) which we had previously considered a geographic variant of P. poecilus (Thorell, 1872) (see remarks on intraspecific variation in this species in Muster 2009). Shortly after publication of the 2009 study, a series of specimens from pine trees in Macedonia, Greece was sampled by a group of Belgian arachnologists that could not be allocated to any of the known species. Due to similarities in the shape of the receptacula, we originally assumed to have found more females and the unknown male of P. pentheri Muster, 2009. However, a close examination revealed important structural differences in the vulvae, most importantly, the newly collected females show a voluminous, sclerotised bursa copulatrix. In this paper we therefore describe a further species, belonging to the P. poecilus group of the Philodromus subgenus Artanes. This is a nice example in illustrating how the availability of a modern revision may trigger new findings.