Summary: 1.The view of post‐mining sites is rapidly changing among ecologists and conservationists, as sensitive restoration using spontaneous succession may turn such sites into biodiversity refuges in human‐exploited regions. However, technical reclamation, consisting of covering the sites by topsoil, sowing fast‐growing herb mixtures and planting trees, is still commonly adopted. Until now, no multi‐taxa study has compared technically reclaimed sites and sites left with spontaneous succession.2.We sampled communities of vascular plants and 10 arthropod groups in technically reclaimed and spontaneously restored plots in limestone quarries in the Bohemian Karst, Czech Republic. For comparison, we used pairedt‐tests and multivariate methods, emphasizing red‐list status and habitat specialization of individual species.3.We recorded 692 species of target taxa, with a high proportion of red‐listed (10%) and xeric specialist (14%) species, corroborating the great conservation potential of the quarries.4.Spontaneously restored post‐mining sites did not differ in species richness from the technical reclaimed sites but they supported more rare species. The microhabitat cover of leaf litter, herbs and moss, were all directly influenced by the addition of topsoil during reclamation.5.Synthesis and applications.Our results show that the high conservation potential of limestone quarries could be realized by allowing succession to progress spontaneously with minimal intervention. Given the threat to semi‐natural sparsely vegetated habitats in many regions, active restoration measures at post‐mining sites should be limited to maintenance of early successional stages, instead of acceleration of succession.

Here, we present a study regarding the phylogenetic positions of two enigmatic earwig lineages whose unique phenotypic traits evolved in connection with ectoparasitic relationships with mammals. Extant earwigs (Dermaptera) have traditionally been divided into three suborders: the Hemimerina, Arixeniina, and Forficulina. While the Forficulina are typical, well-known, free-living earwigs, the Hemimerina and Arixeniina are unusual epizoic groups living on molossid bats (Arixeniina) or murid rodents (Hemimerina). The monophyly of both epizoic lineages is well established, but their relationship to the remainder of the Dermaptera is controversial because of their extremely modified morphology with paedomorphic features. We present phylogenetic analyses that include molecular data (18S and 28S ribosomal DNA and histone-3) for both Arixeniina and Hemimerina for the first time. This data set enabled us to apply a rigorous cladistics approach and to test competing hypotheses that were previously scattered in the literature. Our results demonstrate that Arixeniidae and Hemimeridae belong in the dermapteran suborder Neodermaptera, infraorder Epidermaptera, and superfamily Forficuloidea. The results support the sister group relationships of Arixeniidae+Chelisochidae and Hemimeridae+Forficulidae. This study demonstrates the potential for rapid and substantial macroevolutionary changes at the morphological level as related to adaptive evolution, in this case linked to the utilization of a novel trophic niche based on an epizoic life strategy. Our results also indicate that the evolutionary consequences of the transition to an ectoparazitic mode of living, which is extremely rare in earwigs, have biased previous morphology-based hypotheses regarding the phylogeny of this insect group.