Described from the steppe zones north of the Black Sea, Caucasus, and central Asia, Gryllotalpa stepposa Zhantiev was recently recorded from a few localities in Greece, R. Macedonia, and Bulgaria. In May 2015, several specimens were collected from Ivrinezu Mare in Romania, which suggested a continuous distribution area of the species, stretching from the central Balkans to central Asia. Thus, to reveal its actual range of occurrence, a survey of several Orthoptera collections became mandatory and, as expected, a large number of misidentified specimens of Gryllotalpa stepposa were discovered, providing new data on the species distribution in south-eastern Europe, including also the first records of this mole cricket in Serbia and Hungary. Here a full locality list is presented of this species west of Ukraine and Moldova and the current geographic distribution of the genus Gryllotalpa in the Balkans is revised. A key for distinguishing the mole crickets in south-eastern Europe and a distribution map for this region are presented.

Ten microsatellite loci were isolated and characterized for Stys’s bush-cricket, Isophya stysi Cejchan (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae), an endemic Orthoptera species to the Carpathian Basin, us-ing an enriched genomic library procedure. The polymorphism of these loci were tested in two populations of I. stysi , and the number of alleles per locus varied from 4 to 16. The expected and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.612 to 0.925 and from 0.625 to 1.000, respectively. The interspecific applicability of these microsatellites was evaluated by amplification in 20 related species: Isophya camptoxypha, Isophya sicula, Isophya ciucasi, Isophya pienensis, Isophya harzi, Isophya kraussii, Isophya zubovskii, Isophya rectipennis, Isophya modesta, Isophya longicauda-ta, Isophya dobrogensis, Isophya hospodar, Isophya speciosa, Isophya modestior, Poecilimon fussii, Poecilimon affinis, Polysarcus denticauda, Barbitistes constrictus, Leptophyes discoidalis, Phaneroptera falcata . All primer pairs for the 10 loci yielded successful amplifications in at least one other taxon from the Isophya genus. This set of microsatellite loci would be useful for genet-ic studies in I. stysi and other species of the genus Isophya .

Previously considered as a thelytokous parthenogenetic species, the widespread ant cricket Myrmecophilus acervorum actually turns out to have a mixed reproductive system: our recent surveys in the central part of its distribution area has revealed the presence of both sexes. Detailed morphological and morphometric descriptions of the previously unknown males are here provided. New data on species distribution in south-eastern Europe are presented, including the first records of M. balcanicus in Bulgaria and of M. nonveilleri in Bulgaria and Hungary. Phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyses have revealed several haplotypes of M. acervorum in Europe, with six of them forming a parthenogenetic clade in populations distributed west of the Carpathians. We tested our samples for bacterial infection by Wolbachia and, surprisingly, Wolbachia was identified only in populations with both sexes and no amplification was obtained from parthenogenetic populations. Phylogenetic analyses performed with sequences pertaining to five nominal species related to M. acervorum, yielded topological congruent trees with four well-supported groups: one group with M. acervorum samples, the second group with M. nonveilleri samples, the third group with M. fuscus and M. gallicus samples, and the fourth group with samples of M. balcanicus. We performed species delineation tests on our sequences, which delimited between four to seven putative species.

The long-term survival of a species requires, among other things, gene flow between populations. Approaches for the evaluation of fragmentation in the frame of freshwater habitats consider only a small amount of the information that combined demography and geography are currently able to provide. This study addresses two species ofAustropotamobiuscrayfish in the light of population genetics, spatial ecology and protected areas of the Carpathians. Advancing the classical approaches, we defined ecological distances upon the rasterised river network as a surrogate of habitat resistance to migration, quantifying the deviations from the species´ suitability range for a set of relevant geospatial variables in each cell of the network. Molecular analyses revealed the populations of the twoAustropotamobiuscrayfish species are clearly distinct, lacking hybridisation. Comparing pairs of populations, we found, in some cases, a strong disagreement regarding genetic and ecological distances, potentially due to human-mediated translocations or the geophysical phenomena of regressive erosion, which may have led to unexpected colonisation routes. Protected areas were found to offer appropriate local habitat conditions but failed to ensure connectivity. The methodology applied in this study allowed us to quantify the contribution of each geospatial (environmental) variable to the overall effect of fragmentation, and we found that water quality was the most important variable. A multilevel approach proved to reveal a better understanding of drivers behind the distribution patterns, which can lead to more adequate conservation measures.

The use of DNA barcoding in alien invasions has recently proved to be a powerful tool in delineating dispersal pathways and clarifying doubtful identifications. Morphological similarities between Anadara kagoshimensis (Tokunaga, 1906) and Anadara inaequivalvis (Bruguière, 1789) require the use of genetic markers in identifying the ark shell species that has recently invaded the Black Sea. The high genetic similarity (99.8-100%) hereby found between COI sequences obtained from the Black Sea samples and Japanese A. kagoshimensis confirms at a molecular level that the ark clam species invading the Romanian Black Sea belong to this taxon.

Sinanodonta woodiana (Lea, 1834) is a large Unionid species with a real invasion success. It colonized Europe, Central America, the Indonesian Islands and recently North America. The species life cycle involves a larval parasitic stage on freshwater fish species which contributes to the spread of the mussel. In this paper we describe, for the first time, eight polymorphic microsatellite loci for the species Sinanodonta woodiana. The genetic screening of individuals confirmed that all loci were highly polymorphic. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 7 to 14 and the observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.650 to 0.950. These loci should prove useful to study the species population genetics which could help to infer important aspects of the invasion process.