Deadwood is a substantial component of forests playing a central role in many ecosystem processes. It provides habitats for a multitude of wood-dependent organisms, maintaining the ecosystem health and reducing the effect of natural disturbances. Deadwood is recognized as an indicator of local species diversity and contributes to the global carbon pools and nutrient cycles. Despite its importance, how saproxylic communities respond to deadwood dynamics across multiple spatial and temporal scales is still not clear. With the present review, we aim to summarize the effects of deadwood characteristics on the diversity and composition of saproxylic insects and fungi, with focus on European forests. We also discuss the influence of other biotic and abiotic components that indirectly affect these communities by altering wood continuity and variety. Niche differentiation is the main ecological driver of saproxylic organisms, as the presence of multiple microhabitats supports differently specialized taxa. The assemblage and richness of these saproxylic communities within forest ecosystems can be considered as indicators of climate-smart forestry trajectories. This aspect deserves to be regarded as a major target in sustainable forest management plans, especially in mountain areas, where the conservation of threatened species and the promotion of biodiverse forests are considered a priority.

Since adequate information on the distribution of biodiversity is hardly achievable, biodiversity indicators are necessary to support the management of ecosystems. These surrogates assume that either some habitat features, or the biodiversity patterns observed in a well-known taxon, can be used as a proxy of the diversity of one or more target taxa. Nevertheless, at least for certain taxa, the validity of this assumption has not yet been sufficiently demonstrated.We investigated the effectiveness of both a habitat- and a taxa-based surrogate in six European beech forests in the Apennines. Particularly, we tested: (1) whether the stand structural complexity and the herb-layer species richness were good predictors of the fine-scale patterns of species richness of five groups of forest-dwelling organisms (beetles, saproxylic and epigeous fungi, birds and epiphytic lichens); and (2) the cross-taxon congruence in species complementarity and composition between herb-layer plants and the target taxa.We used Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs), accumulation curves and Procrustes analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of these surrogates when species richness, complementarity and composition were considered, respectively.Our results provided a limited support to the hypothesis that the herb-layer plants and the stand structural complexity were good surrogates of the target taxa. Although the richness of the herb-layer plants received a stronger support from the data than structural complexity as a predictor for the general patterns of species richness, the overall magnitude of this effect was weak and distinct taxa responded differently. For instance, for increasing levels of herb-layer richness, the richness of lichens showed a marked increase, while the richness of saproxylic fungi decreased. We also found significantly similar complementarity patterns between the herb-layer plants and beetles, as well as a significant congruence in species composition between herb-layer plants and saproxylic fungi. Finally, when different stand structural attributes were considered singularly, only the total amount of deadwood received support from the data as a predictor of the overall species richness.At the fine scale of this study, herb-layer plants and stand structural complexity did not prove to be effective surrogates of multi-taxon biodiversity in well-preserved southern European beech forests. Rather than on weak surrogates, these results suggest that sound conservation decisions should be supported by the information provided by comprehensive multi-taxonomic assessments of forest biodiversity

In this paper we present a checklist and integrative revision for the genus Prasinocyma (Geometridae, Geometrinae, Hemistolini). With this contribution the checklist for the genus Prasinocyma in Ethiopia increases from eight to 40 species. Nineteen species and five subspecies are described as new for the science: Prasinocyma pedicata aethiopica subsp. n., Prasinocyma angolica pseudopedicata subsp. n., Prasinocyma bongaensis sp. n., Prasinocyma getachewi sp. n., Prasinocyma baumgaertneri sp. n., Prasinocyma robusta sp. n., Prasinocyma shoa yabellensis subsp. n., Prasinocyma amharensis sp. n., Prasinocyma magica sp. n., Prasinocyma batesi distans subsp. n., Prasinocyma monikae sp. n., Prasinocyma fusca sp. n., Prasinocyma leveneorum sp. n., Prasinocyma aquamarina sp. n., Prasinocyma beryllaria sp. n., Prasinocyma lutulenta sp. n., Prasinocyma septentrionalis sp. n., Prasinocyma fallax sp. n., Prasinocyma trematerrai sp. n., Prasinocyma trematerrai simienensis subsp. n., Prasinocyma angulifera sp. n., Prasinocyma stefani sp. n., Prasinocyma gemmifera sp. n., Prasinocyma discipuncta sp. n. Prasinocyma thiaucourti Herbulot, 1993 is downgraded from species rank to subspecies of P. immaculata (Thunberg, 1784) (stat. n.). Prasinocyma unipuncta Warren, 1897 is downgraded from species rank to synonymy of P. immaculata (Thunberg, 1784) (syn. n.). Prasinocyma nereis Townsend, 1952 (comb.n.) is transferred from genus Eretmopus to Prasinocyma. Thalassodes camerunalta Herbulot, 1986 (comb.n.) is transferred from genus Thalassodes to Prasinocyma. Thalassodini (syn.n.) are downgraded to synonymy of Hemistolini, here.