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Aim: In this study, we assessed the importance of local‐ to landscape‐scale effects of land cover and land use on flying insect biomass. Location: Denmark and parts of Germany. Methods: We used rooftop‐mounted car nets in a citizen science project ("InsectMobile") to allow for large‐scale geographic sampling of flying insects. Volunteers sampled insects along 278 five‐km routes in urban, farmland, grassland, wetland and forest landscapes in the summer of 2018. The bulk insect samples were dried overnight to obtain the sample biomass. We extracted proportional land use variables in buffers between 50 and 1,000 m along the routes and compiled them into land cover categories to examine the effect of each land cover, and specific land use types, on insect biomass. Results: We found a negative association between urban cover and flying insect biomass (1% increase in urban cover = 1% [95% CI: −3.0 to 0.0] decrease in biomass in Denmark, and a 3% [95% CI: −3.0 to 0.0] decrease in Germany) at a landscape scale (1,000‐m buffer). In Denmark, we also found positive effects of semi‐natural land cover types, that is protected grassland (largest at the landscape scale, 1000 m) and forests (largest at intermediate scales, 250 m). Protected grassland cover had a stronger positive effect on insect biomass than forest cover did. For farmland cover, the positive association with insect biomass was not clearly modified by any variable associated with farmland use intensity. The negative association between insect biomass and urban land cover appeared to be reduced by increased urban green space. Main conclusions: Our results show that land cover has an impact on flying insect biomass with the magnitude of this effect varying across spatial scales. However, the vast expanse of grey space in urbanized areas has a direct negative impact on flying insect biomass across all spatial scales examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of Denmark's earliest Christian cemeteries is Kongemarken, dating to around AD 1000-1250. A feature of early Scandinavian Christian cemeteries is sex segregation, with females buried on the northern sides and males on the southern sides. However, such separation was never complete; in the few early Christian cemeteries excavated in Scandinavia, there were always a few males placed on the north side, and some females on the south side. At Kongemarken, several males with juxtaposed females were found on the north side of the cemetery. Thus, to evaluate possible kinship relationships, and more general questions of population affinity, we analyzed mitochondrial DNA extracted from nine individuals excavated in two different areas within the cemetery: one male and four females from Area 1, and one male and three females from Area 2. Using stringent laboratory protocols, each individual was unequivocally assigned to a mitochondrial haplogroup. A surprising amount of haplogroup diversity was observed (Area 1:1 U7 (male), 1 H, 1 I, 1 J, and 1 T2; Area 2:2 H, 1 I, and 1 T, with one H being male); even the three subjects of haplogroup H were of different subtypes. This indicates that no subjects within each area were maternally related. The observed haplogroup, U7, while common in India and in western Siberian tribes, was not previously observed among present-day ethnic Scandinavians, and haplogroup I is rare (2%) in Scandinavia. These observations suggest that the individuals living in the Roskilde region 1,000 years ago were not all members of a tightly knit local population and comprised individuals with genetic links with populations that were from much farther away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of a multiplex assay with 52 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) developed for human identification was tested on 124 mother-child-father trios. The typical paternity indices (PIs) were 10(5)-10(6) for the trios and 10(3)-10(4) for the child-father duos. Using the SNP profiles from the randomly selected trios and 700 previously typed individuals, a total of 83,096 comparisons between mother, child and an unrelated man were performed. On average, 9-10 mismatches per comparison were detected. Four mismatches were genetic inconsistencies and 5-6 mismatches were opposite homozygosities. In only two of the 83,096 comparisons did an unrelated man match perfectly to a mother-child duo, and in both cases the PI of the true father was much higher than the PI of the unrelated man. The trios were also typed for 15 short tandem repeats (STRs) and seven variable number of tandem repeats (VNTRs). The typical PIs based on 15 STRs or seven VNTRs were 5-50 times higher than the typical PIs based on 52 SNPs. Six mutations in tandem repeats were detected among the randomly selected trios. In contrast, there was not found any mutations in the SNP loci. The results showed that the 52 SNP-plex assay is a very useful alternative to currently used methods in relationship testing. The usefulness of SNP markers with low mutation rates in paternity and immigration casework is discussed.