Pollinators play a crucial role in ecosystems globally, ensuring the seed production of most flowering plants. They are threatened by global changes and knowledge of their distribution at the national and continental levels is needed to implement efficient conservation actions, but this knowledge is still fragmented and/or difficult to access. As a step forward, we provide an updated list of around 3000 European bee and hoverfly species, reflecting their current distributional status at the national level (in the form of present, absent, regionally extinct, possibly extinct or non‐native). This work was attainable by incorporating both published and unpublished data, as well as knowledge from a large set of taxonomists and ecologists in both groups. After providing the first National species lists for bees and hoverflies for many countries, we examine the current distributional patterns of these species and designate the countries with highest levels of species richness. We also show that many species are recorded in a single European country, highlighting the importance of articulating European and national conservation strategies. Finally, we discuss how the data provided here can be combined with future trait and Red List data to implement research that will further advance pollinator conservation.
Climate change is an important driver of the spread of apiary pests and honeybee predators. These impact on one of the economically most important pollinators and thus pose serious threats to the functioning of both natural ecosystems and crops. We investigated the impact of the predicted climate change in the periods 2040–2060 and 2060–2080 on the potential distribution of the European beewolf Philanthus triangulum, a specialized honeybee predator. We modelled its potential distribution using the MaxEnt method based on contemporary occurrence data and bioclimatic variables. Our model had an overall good performance (AUC = 0.864) and the threshold of occurrence probability, assessed as the point with the highest sum of sensitivity and specificity, was at 0.533. Annual temperature range (69.5%), mean temperature in the warmest quarter (12.4%), and precipitation in the warmest quarter (7.9%) were the principal bioclimatic variables significantly affecting the potential distribution of the European beewolf. We predicted the potential distribution shifts within two scenarios (optimistic RPC4.5 and pessimistic RCP8.5) and three Global Circulation Models (HadGEM2-ES, IPSL-CM5A-LR, and MPI-SM-LR). Both optimistic and pessimistic scenarios showed that climate change will significantly increase the availability of European beewolf potential niches. Losses of potential niches will only affect small areas in southern Europe. Most of the anticipated changes for the period 2060–2080 will already have occurred in 2040–2060. The predicted range expansion of European beewolf suggests that occurrence and abundance of this species should be monitored.
In this paper four new species of Campopleginae (Ichneumonidae) are described from Iran: Campoletis rubella Vas, sp. nov., Cymodusopsis riedeli Vas, sp. nov., Lemophagus eburnipes Vas, sp. nov., and Melalophacharops persicus Vas, sp. nov. An identification key to the Palaearctic species of Cymodusopsis Viereck is given. Campoletis katalinarum Vas and Lemophagus foersteri (Tschek) are first reported from the Eastern Palaearctic region.
First records of Diodontus medius Dahlbom, 1844 and D. insidiosus Spooner, 1938 from Poland, and of D. handlirschi Kohl, 1888 from Bulgaria and Montenegro are provided. An illustrated key for the identification of Central and Eastern European species of the genus Diodontus is given.
Better empirical knowledge of how bat and insect phenology are influenced by seasonal environmental conditions and how this may affect fitness is essential in the face of changing climatic conditions. We examined the winter diet of the Schreibers’ bent-winged bat Miniopterus schreibersii (Kuhl, 1817) from Razhishkata Cave, Balkan Mountains, Bulgaria during four sampling periods in the winter of 2021 (end of January - end of March). We used a combination of DNA metabarcoding and a microscope-based morphological analyses of bats droppings. Additionally, we tracked prey availability in the studied area using insect flight interception traps (FIT). The species was actively feeding outside the cave and did not use the cave fauna. Our samples indicate a shift in the winter diet of the bats throughout the studied periods. Even though Diptera was the most abundant order of insects during two of the study periods, bats were preying predominantly on Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. The metabarcoding also supported this with data for the presence of insects with diurnal activity in the samples. The temperature loggers showed a strong correlation between the outside temperature and the temperature in the cave where the colony was located, probably impacting the activity patterns of the bats. To our knowledge, this is the first study of winter bat activity and diet in Bulgaria. Our research can serve as a potential framework for studying winter bat activity and insect activity during this sensitive period.
The first checklist of Sphecidae of Tunisia is established. It is based on literature, on examination of Tunisian specimens present in the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France), and on specimens recently collected in Tunisia. Fifty-three species and subspecies belonging to 10 genera, 3 tribes and 4 subfamilies are listed. Three species: Parapsammophila errabunda (Kohl, 1901), Eremochares luteus (Taschenberg, 1869) and Prionyx macula (Fabricius, 1804) are recorded for the first time from Tunisia.