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Human and animal vector-borne diseases, particularly mosquito-borne diseases, are emerging or re-emerging worldwide. Six Aedes invasive mosquito (AIM) species were introduced to Europe since the 1970s: Aedes aegypti, Ae. albopictus, Ae. japonicus, Ae. koreicus, Ae. atropalpus and Ae. triseriatus. Here, we report the results of AIMSurv2020, the first pan-European surveillance effort for AIMs. Implemented by 42 volunteer teams from 24 countries. And presented in the form of a dataset named “AIMSurv Aedes Invasive Mosquito species harmonized surveillance in Europe. AIM-COST Action. Project ID: CA17108”. AIMSurv2020 harmonizes field surveillance methodologies for sampling different AIMs life stages, frequency and minimum length of sampling period, and data reporting. Data include minimum requirements for sample types and recommended requirements for those teams with more resources. Data are published as a Darwin Core archive in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility- Spain, comprising a core file with 19,130 records (EventID) and an occurrences file with 19,743 records (OccurrenceID). AIM species recorded in AIMSurv2020 were Ae. albopictus, Ae. japonicus and Ae. koreicus, as well as native mosquito species. This study was funded by the Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy) under the project ‘Coordinated surveillance actions on invasive alien species and emerging vector borne diseases’; the City Health Office of the City of Zagreb, within the ‘Program for monitoring invasive mosquito species in the area of the City of Zagreb in 2020’; the Consejería de Economía e Infraestructura of the Junta de Extremadura and the European Regional Development Fund, a Way to Make Europe, through the research project IB16135; Dirección de Salud Pública (Gobierno Vasco), Project EU-LIFE 18 IPC/ES/000001 (Urban Klima 2050) y Programa Estatal de Vigilancia de mosquitos en puertos y Aeropuertos, del Ministerio de Sanidad (Gobierno de España); EMME-CARE project, which has been funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement ID 856612); Institute of Zoology under the project EVOLANTER (project no. 20.80009.7007.02). RL is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under the project NEED (grant no. 01Kl2022); LIFE CONOPS project (LIFE12 ENV/GR/000466), funded by the European Commission in the framework of the program LIFE + Environment Policy and Governance; Municipalities of Slovenia: City Municipality of Nova Gorica, City Municipality of Koper, Municipality of Izola, Municipality of Piran and Municipality of Ankaran; National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH grant numbers KH-130379, PD-135143, FK-138563 and K-135841). The research activity of KK was supported by the Janos Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and by the ÚNKP-20-5-PTE-597 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology; Portuguese National Program for Vector Surveillance (REVIVE) and we are particularly grateful to the regional workgroup of Algarve for the monitoring activities; PR (19_ECO_0070) project ‘Aves y Enfermedades Infecciosas Emergentes: Impacto de las Especies Exóticas y Migratorias en la transmisión de Malaria aviar y el virus del Nilo Occidental – AvEIEs’ from ‘Ayudas Fundación BBVA a Equipos de Investigación Científica 2019’; project grant number 57 PCCDI/2018, grant agency ‘The Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation’ (UEFISCDI) Romania, ‘Collegium Talentum Programme’ of Hungary, Eötvös Loránd University’s ‘Homeland higher education study grant’; Slovak Research Agency VEGA nr. 2/0140/21; Vector Control Needs Assessment in Cyprus, contracted by the World Health Organization (reference 2020/1040069-0); Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia Regions (Regional Prevention Plans ‘Entomological Surveillance of vector-borne diseases’ in the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia Regions); the Institute of Public Health, Albania under the program of mosquitoes control in urban and coastal areas.

Forest ecosystems have a distinct vertical dimension, but the structuring of communities in this three-dimensional space is not well understood. Water-filled tree holes are natural microcosms structured in metacommunities. Here, we used these microcosms as model systems to analyze how insect communities and the occurrence and abundance of individual species are influenced by biotic and abiotic microhabitat characteristics, the vertical position of the tree hole, and stand-scale habitat availability. We found that both the characteristics of water-filled tree holes and their insect communities differ significantly between canopy and ground level. Individual insect species showed contrasting responses to the vertical position of the tree holes when important environmental factors at the stand and the tree-hole scale were considered. While some species, such as the mosquito Aedes geniculatus and the beetle Prionocyphon serricornis, decreased in abundance with increasing tree-hole height, the biting midge Dasyhelea sp., the non-biting midge Metriocnemus cavicola and the hoverfly Myiatropa florea increased in abundance. Our results suggest that vertical stratification in forests is most likely driven not only by variation in tree-hole microhabitat properties, i.e., niche separation, but also by individual species traits, such as adult dispersal propensity, food preferences and mating behavior of adult stages, and interspecific competition of larval stages. Therefore, communities of insect species developing in tree holes are likely structured by competition–colonization trade-offs predicted by metacommunity theory.

INTRODUCTION: The proximity of semi-natural habitats and agricultural fields in an agricultural landscape leads to unavoidable biological, chemical, and physical interactions. Fungi can negatively influence, but also support crop growth in agricultural fields. Therefore, in this field study we investigated the colonisation of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and non-AM fungi in winter-wheat roots as well as winter-wheat performance in distance to semi-natural habitats. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We sampled in an intensively managed agricultural landscape in North-east Germany along agricultural transition zones, that is, along 50 m-transects from semi-natural habitats like hedgerows and glacially created in-field ponds—so-called kettle holes—into agricultural fields. RESULTS: To our knowledge, we show for the first time that AM fungal colonisation in winter-wheat roots decreased linearly with increasing distance to semi-natural habitats while non-AM fungal root colonisation did not change. Winter-wheat grain yield and biomass slightly increased with increasing distance to hedgerows but not to kettle holes. This clearly shows that there is a difference between different crop performance parameters. Random forest machine learning algorithms confirmed the particular importance of distance to semi-natural habitats for AM fungal root colonisation and for winter-wheat grain yield. Less intensive agricultural management close to semi-natural habitats, for example, no herbicide and pesticide applications as a result of nature protection regulations, may partly explain this pattern. However, spatial response patterns of AM but not of non-AM fungi in wheat roots also point to changed ecological interactions close to semi-natural habitats. CONCLUSION: Semi-natural and natural habitats in agricultural landscapes are slowly recognised not only to be important for biodiversity conservation, but also for sustainable crop production. Additionally, they may also be a tool for farmers and policy makers to improve sustainable landscape management. And agricultural transition zones are spatially and temporally complex dynamic ecosystems that should be the focus of further investigations.

Forest ecosystems have a distinct vertical dimension, but the structuring of communities in this three-dimensional space is not well understood. Water-filled tree holes are natural microcosms structured in metacommunities. Here, we used these microcosms as model systems to analyze how insect communities and the occurrence and abundance of individual species are influenced by biotic and abiotic microhabitat characteristics, the vertical position of the tree hole, and stand-scale habitat availability. We found that both the characteristics of water-filled tree holes and their insect communities differ significantly between canopy and ground level. Individual insect species showed contrasting responses to the vertical position of the tree holes when important environmental factors at the stand and the tree-hole scale were considered. While some species, such as the mosquito Aedes geniculatus and the beetle Prionocyphon serricornis, decreased in abundance with increasing tree-hole height, the biting midge Dasyhelea sp., the non-biting midge Metriocnemus cavicola and the hoverfly Myiatropa florea increased in abundance. Our results suggest that vertical stratification in forests is most likely driven not only by variation in tree-hole microhabitat properties, i.e., niche separation, but also by individual species traits, such as adult dispersal propensity, food preferences and mating behavior of adult stages, and interspecific competition of larval stages. Therefore, communities of insect species developing in tree holes are likely structured by competition–colonization trade-offs predicted by metacommunity theory., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 4, ISSN:2624-893X

The biodiversity–ecosystem functioning concept asserts that processes in ecosystems are markedly influenced by species richness and other facets of biodiversity. However, biodiversity–ecosystem functioning studies have been largely restricted to single ecosystems, ignoring the importance of functional links – such as the exchange of matter, energy, and organisms – between coupled ecosystems. Here we present a basic concept and outline three pathways of cross-boundary biodiversity effects on ecosystem processes and propose an agenda to assess such effects, focusing on terrestrial–aquatic linkages to illustrate the case. This cross-boundary perspective of biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships presents a promising frontier for biodiversity and ecosystem science with repercussions for the conservation, restoration, and management of biodiversity and ecosystems from local to landscape scales.

Knowledge on cheetah population densities across their current range is limited. Therefore, new and efficient assessment tools are needed to gain more knowledge on species distribution, ecology and behaviour. Scat detection dogs have emerged as an efficient and non-invasive method to monitor elusive and vulnerable animal species, like cheetahs, due to the dog’s superior olfactory system. However, the success of locating scat using detection dogs can be significantly improved under suitable weather conditions. We examined the impact of temperature, humidity and wind speed on detection rates of scat from cheetahs during a scat detection dog survey in Northern Kenya. We found that average wind speed positively influences the scat detection rate of detection dogs working on leash. Humidity showed no significant influence. Temperature showed a strong negative correlation with humidity and thus was excluded from our model analyses. While it is likely that wind speed is especially invalid for dogs working off leash, this study did not demonstrate this. Wind speed could thus influence the success of monitoring cheetahs or other target species. Our findings help to improve the survey and thus maximise the coverage of study area and the collection of target samples of elusive and rare species.

Organismal movement is ubiquitous and facilitates important ecological mechanisms that drive community and metacommunity composition and hence biodiversity. In most existing ecological theories and models in biodiversity research, movement is represented simplistically, ignoring the behavioural basis of movement and consequently the variation in behaviour at species and individual levels. However, as human endeavours modify climate and land use, the behavioural processes of organisms in response to these changes, including movement, become critical to understanding the resulting biodiversity loss. Here, we draw together research from different subdisciplines in ecology to understand the impact of individual‐level movement processes on community‐level patterns in species composition and coexistence. We join the movement ecology framework with the key concepts from metacommunity theory, community assembly and modern coexistence theory using the idea of micro–macro links, where various aspects of emergent movement behaviour scale up to local and regional patterns in species mobility and mobile‐link‐generated patterns in abiotic and biotic environmental conditions. These in turn influence both individual movement and, at ecological timescales, mechanisms such as dispersal limitation, environmental filtering, and niche partitioning. We conclude by highlighting challenges to and promising future avenues for data generation, data analysis and complementary modelling approaches and provide a brief outlook on how a new behaviour‐based view on movement becomes important in understanding the responses of communities under ongoing environmental change.

Data for microfauna community transplantation experiment in bromeliads along an elevational gradient

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