At a time when nature conservation has become essential to ensure the long-term sustainability of our environment, it is widely acknowledged that conservation actions must be implemented within a solid taxonomic framework. In preparation for the upcoming update of the IUCN Red List, we here update the European checklist of the wild bees (sensu the IUCN geographical framework). The original checklist, published in 2014, was revised for the first time in 2017. In the present revision, we add one genus, four subgenera and 67 species recently described, 40 species newly recorded since the latest revision (including two species that are not native to Europe), 26 species overlooked in the previous European checklists and 63 published synonymies. We provide original records for eight species previously unknown to the continent and, as original taxonomic acts, we provide three new synonyms, we consider two names as nomina nuda, ten names as nomina dubia, three as species inquirenda, synonymize three species and exclude 40 species from the previous checklist. Around a hundred other taxonomic changes and clarifications are also included and discussed. The present work revises the total number of genera for IUCN Europe to 77 and the total number of species to 2,138. In addition to specifying the taxonomic changes necessary to update the forthcoming Red List of European bees, we discuss the sampling and taxonomic biases that characterise research on the European bee fauna and highlight the growing importance of range expansions and species invasions.

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 This work was attainable by incorporating both published and unpublished data, as well as knowledge from a large set of taxonomists and ecologists in both groups.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.

The study of wild bees has markedly increased in recent years due to their importance as pollinators of crops and wild plants, and this interest has been accentuated by increasing evidence of global declines in their abundance and species richness. Though best studied in Europe and North America, knowledge on the current state of wild bees is scarce in regions where they are particularly diversified, such as the Mediterranean basin. The eastern Mediterranean country of Lebanon, located at the heart of the Levant in a biodiversity hotspot, is particularly poorly studied. The aim of this paper is to produce a first annotated checklist of the wild bees of Lebanon from new and museum collections, literature records, and verified occurrences from online databases. The present list totals 573 species for Lebanon of which 289 are reported for the first time, but the estimated diversity is likely to be closer to 700. Preliminary information on local distributions and flower records are also presented. The local species assemblages indicate affinities with montane habitats of the Mediterranean and Anatolia and the semi-arid habitats of the Levant and north Africa. This study also encourages further research on local wild bee faunas and the use of this knowledge for conservation purposes.

The status of the Green Turtle, Chelonia mydas, nesting population in the Mediterranean is reviewed on the basis of literature records and unpublished data. It is estimated that 350 to 1750 clutches are laid per year, from which an annual nesting population of 115 to 580 females can be estimated. 99% of all recorded nesting occurs in Cyprus and in Turkey, with the remainder being found in the Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. Interannual fluctuations in the number of nests follows a relatively synchronous pattern across the region. 78% of all nests are concentrated at five key sites, three of them in Turkey (Akyatan, Kazanlı, Samandağ) and two in northern Cyprus (North Karpaz, Alagadi). As well as making the nesting population vulnerable, this concentration allows the focussing of conservation efforts. The existing threats to the nesting sites are described in detail; they are multifold, and include destruction of nesting habitat for tourism and agriculture, beach erosion and pollution. By-catch of turtles in fisheries, direct exploitation, nest predation, and global warming pose additional threats. Despite extensive turtle research in the Mediterranean, our knowledge of the size of the Green Turtle population and population dynamics are still insufficient. Increased consistent monitoring in tandem with conservation management is needed.

The two bee species Eoanthidium judaeense s.l. and E. clypeare s.l. are endemic to the Middle East and south-east Europe, and each of them occurs in a light form, with rich yellow and light brown maculation, and a dark form. It was found that in both taxa the light forms are restricted to the Levant and the northern belt of the Syrian desert, while the dark forms are much more widely distributed. While the transition from the dark to the light form is abrupt in E. judaeense s.l., there is a zone with intermediate forms in E. clypeare s.l. A Discriminant Function Analysis carried out on morphometric para- meters enabled 87.5% of all females and 93.9% of all males in E. judaeense s.l. to be attributed to either the light or the dark form solely on the basis of morphometric data. For E. clypeare s.l., the respective values were 79.3% (females) and 82.5% (males) when intermediate forms were not taken into account. As the colour variation is thus correlated with morphological variation and the distribution is discrete without follow- ing a geographical cline, these forms should be recognised as distinct semispecies: The species pair E. judaeense (Mavromoustakis, 1945) and E. pasteelsi (Warncke, 1980) stat. n., and the pair E. clypeare (Morawitz, 1874) and E. hoplostomum (Mavro- moustakis, 1945) stat. resurr. The areas where the dark and the light species meet are apparently secondary contact zones, and the putative hybridisation and lower level of morphometric distinctiveness found between E. clypeare and E. hoplostomum indicate that speciation is less advanced than in E. pasteelsi/E. judaeense. The dark forms seem to have evolved independently, probably as an adaptation to solar radiation and the two superspecies thus present notable examples of evolutionary convergence.