Bioblitzes are a popular approach to engage people and collect biodiversity data. Despite this, few studies have actually evaluated the multiple outcomes of bioblitz activities. We used a systematic review, an analysis of data from more than 1000 bioblitzes, and a detailed analysis of one specific bioblitz to inform our inquiry. We evaluated five possible bioblitz outcomes, which were creating a species inventory, engaging people in biological recording, enhancing learning about nature, discovering a species new to an area, and promoting an organization. We conclude that bioblitzes are diverse but overall effective at their aims and have advantages over unstructured biodiversity recording. We demonstrate for the first time that bioblitzes increase the recording activity of the participants for several months after the event. In addition, we provide evidence that bioblitzes are effective at bringing people and organizations together to build communities of professionals and amateurs, critical for conserving and protecting biodiversity.

An idiogram construction following chromosome measurements is a versatile tool for cytological, cytogenetic and phylogenetic studies. The information on chromosome length, centromere index and position of cytogenetic landmarks along with modern techniques (e.g. genomic and fluorescence in situ hybridization, banding, chromosome painting) can help to shed light on genome constitution, chromosome rearrangements and evolution. While idiogram construction is a routine task there are only few freely available programs that can perform chromosome measurements and no software for simultaneous measuring of chromosome parameters, chromosomal landmark and FISH signal positions and idiogram construction. To fill this gap, we developed DRAWID (DRAWing IDiogram), java-based cross-platforming program for chromosome analysis and idiogram construction. DRAWID has number of advantages including a user-friendly interactive interface, possibility for simultaneous chromosome and FISH/GISH/banding signal measurement and idiogram drawing as well as number of useful functions facilitating the procedure of chromosome analysis. The output of the program is Microsoft XL table and publish-ready idiogram picture. DRAWID and the manual for its use are freely available on the website at: http://www.drawid.xyz

Plant leaf stomata are the gatekeepers of the atmosphere–plant interface and are essential building blocks of land surface models as they control transpiration and photosynthesis. Although more stomatal trait data are needed to significantly reduce the error in these model predictions, recording these traits is time‐consuming, and no standardized protocol is currently available. Some attempts were made to automate stomatal detection from photomicrographs; however, these approaches have the disadvantage of using classic image processing or targeting a narrow taxonomic entity which makes these technologies less robust and generalizable to other plant species. We propose an easy‐to‐use and adaptable workflow from leaf to label. A methodology for automatic stomata detection was developed using deep neural networks according to the state of the art and its applicability demonstrated across the phylogeny of the angiosperms. We used a patch‐based approach for training/tuning three different deep learning architectures. For training, we used 431 micrographs taken from leaf prints made according to the nail polish method from herbarium specimens of 19 species. The best‐performing architecture was tested on 595 images of 16 additional species spread across the angiosperm phylogeny. The nail polish method was successfully applied in 78% of the species sampled here. The VGG19 architecture slightly outperformed the basic shallow and deep architectures, with a confidence threshold equal to 0.7 resulting in an optimal trade‐off between precision and recall. Applying this threshold, the VGG19 architecture obtained an average F‐score of 0.87, 0.89, and 0.67 on the training, validation, and unseen test set, respectively. The average accuracy was very high (94%) for computed stomatal counts on unseen images of species used for training. The leaf‐to‐label pipeline is an easy‐to‐use workflow for researchers of different areas of expertise interested in detecting stomata more efficiently. The described methodology was based on multiple species and well‐established methods so that it can serve as a reference for future work.

In heterostylous plant species, skewed morph ratios are not uncommon and may arise from a range of factors. Despite the recognized importance of skewed morph ratios on overall reproductive success within populations, little is known about the impact of skewed morph ratios on population genetic diversity and differentiation in heterostylous species. This study specifically aimed to clarify the effect of population size and morph bias on population genetic diversity and differentiation in the temperate forest herb Pulmonaria officinalis. This species is characterized by a distylous breeding system and shows morph-specific differences in reproductive success. Genetic diversity was determined for 27 P. officinalis populations in northern Belgium by using eight recently developed microsatellite markers. Multiple regressions were used to assess the relationship between genetic diversity, morph bias and population size, and F_ST-values were calculated for short- and long-styled morphs separately to study genetic differentiation as a function of morph type. For all genetic measures used, morph bias was more important in explaining patterns of genetic diversity than population size, and in all cases patterns of population genetic diversity followed a quadratic function, which showed a symmetrical decrease in genetic diversity with increasing morph bias. However, probably due to the reproductive advantage of L-morphs relative to S-morphs, maximum genetic diversity was found in populations showing an excess of L-morphs (60·7 % L-morph). On the other hand, no significant difference in pairwise genetic distances between populations was observed between L- (0·107) and S-morphs (0·106). Our results indicate that significant deviations from equal morph ratios not only affect plant reproductive success but also population genetic diversity of heterostylous plant species. Hence, when defining conservation measures for populations of heterostylous plant species, morph ratios should be considered as an important trait affecting their long-term population viability.