Summary: 1.The view of post‐mining sites is rapidly changing among ecologists and conservationists, as sensitive restoration using spontaneous succession may turn such sites into biodiversity refuges in human‐exploited regions. However, technical reclamation, consisting of covering the sites by topsoil, sowing fast‐growing herb mixtures and planting trees, is still commonly adopted. Until now, no multi‐taxa study has compared technically reclaimed sites and sites left with spontaneous succession.2.We sampled communities of vascular plants and 10 arthropod groups in technically reclaimed and spontaneously restored plots in limestone quarries in the Bohemian Karst, Czech Republic. For comparison, we used pairedt‐tests and multivariate methods, emphasizing red‐list status and habitat specialization of individual species.3.We recorded 692 species of target taxa, with a high proportion of red‐listed (10%) and xeric specialist (14%) species, corroborating the great conservation potential of the quarries.4.Spontaneously restored post‐mining sites did not differ in species richness from the technical reclaimed sites but they supported more rare species. The microhabitat cover of leaf litter, herbs and moss, were all directly influenced by the addition of topsoil during reclamation.5.Synthesis and applications.Our results show that the high conservation potential of limestone quarries could be realized by allowing succession to progress spontaneously with minimal intervention. Given the threat to semi‐natural sparsely vegetated habitats in many regions, active restoration measures at post‐mining sites should be limited to maintenance of early successional stages, instead of acceleration of succession.

Three new species of gall-forming psyllids (Hemiptera: Psylloidea) in the families Triozidae and Phacopteronidae are described from Papua New Guinea: Trioza incrustata Percy, sp. nov. makes enclosed leaf margin galls on Celtis philippensis (Cannabaceae), Trioza grallata Percy, sp. nov. makes enclosed leaf surface galls on Elaeocarpus schlechterianus (Elaeocarpaceae), and Cornegenapsylla allophyli Malenovský and Percy, sp. nov. makes enclosed leaf margin galls on Allophylus cobbe (Sapindaceae). Descriptions of the adult and immature morphology for these new species are provided, and differences in adult and immature morphology between Cornegenapsylla allophyli and Cornegenapsylla sinica Yang and Li, 1982 (the type species of Cornegenapsylla) are illustrated. We report new records for Papua New Guinea of Pseudophacopteron tuberculatum (Crawford, 1912) on Alstonia sp. (Apocynaceae), Pauropsylla triozoptera Crawford, 1913 on Ficus trachypison (Moraceae) and Pauropsylla udei Rübsaamen, 1899 on Ficus variegata, with descriptions of the variation found in the latter two widespread Asian species. Pauropsylla reticulata Mathur, 1975 is synonymized with P. udei. Mitochondrial DNA barcodes for the new species, as well as for P. triozoptera and P. udei are provided.

We studied the use of a supervised artificial neural network (ANN) model for semi-automated identification of 18 common European species of Thysanoptera from four genera:AeolothripsHaliday (Aeolothripidae),ChirothripsHaliday,DendrothripsUzel, andLimothripsHaliday (all Thripidae). As input data, we entered 17 continuous morphometric and two qualitative two-state characters measured or determined on different parts of the thrips body (head, pronotum, forewing and ovipositor) and the sex. Our experimental data set included 498 thrips specimens. A relatively simple ANN architecture (multilayer perceptrons with a single hidden layer) enabled a 97% correct simultaneous identification of both males and females of all the 18 species in an independent test. This high reliability of classification is promising for a wider application of ANN in the practice of Thysanoptera identification.