Background Holorusia Loew, 1863 (Diptera: Tipulidae) is a relatively large crane fly genus with a wide distribution in the Afrotropic, Australasian–Oceanian, Eastern Palearctic, Oriental and Nearctic Regions. Although the genus is well known to include the largest crane fly species, the immature stages are, thus far, only described for the larva and pupa of the North American Holorusia hesperea Arnaud

Background The Clubiona zilla-group is a relatively small species group, distributed exclusively in East Asia, with only three species clearly documented so far. New information Clubiona hooda Dong & Zhang, 2016, which was previously placed in the C. trivialis-group, is assigned to the C. zilla-group in the present paper. A new spider of the C. zilla-group from Jiugong Mountain in China is described

DNA barcoding has been succesfully used for bio-surveillance of forest and agricultural pests in temperate areas, but has few applications in the tropics and particulary in Africa. Cacosceles newmannii (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) is a Prioninae species that is locally causing extensive damage in commercially-grown sugarcane in the KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa. Due to the risk of spread of

Background Cousinia knorringiae Bornm. (Asteraceae) belongs to C. sect. Subappendiculatae Tscherneva, a group of the species-rich and taxonomically difficult genus Cousinia Cass. This species is narrowly distributed in the Western Tian-Shan and has been known as endemic to Kyrgyzstan. It inhabits bare rocks and screes at elevations of 1200–1500 m above sea level. This species is of conservation interest

Background The lace bug genus Eritingis Drake and Ruhoff, 1962 is widely distributed in the Australian and Oriental Regions, whereas only a single species, E. recentis (Drake and Poor, 1937), has been recorded from the Oriental Region. To date, E. recentis is known to occur in Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and Vietnam, but has not been recorded from Japan and Thailand. New information

Background Mediterranean ports are sources of significant economic activity and at the same time they act as recipients of considerable anthropogenic disturbance and pollution. Polluted and low-in-oxygen sediments can negatively impact benthic biodiversity and favour recruitment of opportunistic or invasive species. Macrobenthic communities are an important component of the port biota and can be used

Background Recent fieldwork by the author in Tenerife, mostly between 2014 and 2019, yielded new records of alien vascular plants. New information Fifteen taxa (Acacia decurrens, A. mearnsii, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Ensete ventricosum, Eucalyptus camaldulensis subsp. arida, E. cladocalyx, Euryops chrysanthemoides, Ficus elastica, Lippia alba, Pavonia sepioides, Pittosporum tobira, Populus × canadensis

Colletes hederae Schmidt & Westrich, 1993 is a cryptic bee species from the C. succinctus species-group. The previous occurrence and spreading of this species were predominantly in south-western Europe. To determine if the species was spreading in Slovak territory, Hedera helix was monitored from autumn 2015. The ivy-bee was first recorded in Slovakia during autumn 2017. This species is widespread

Background The bat fly genus Ascodipteron Adensamer, 1896 currently contains 15 species, all of which occur in tropical and subtropical areas of the Eastern Hemisphere. A new species of endoparasitic bat fly, Ascodipteron sanmingensis sp. nov., was collected from the Great Himalayan Leaf-nosed Bat, Hipposideros armiger (Hodgson, 1853), during ecological studies on bats in Fujian, China. New information

Background Soybean (Glycine max) is a major source of edible oil and protein. A novel species of the genus Pythium, Pythium huanghuaiense, isolated from soybean seedlings in China, is described and illustrated on the basis of morphological characters and molecular evidence. New information Pythium huanghuaiense sp. nov. is closely related to species of the genus Pythium in clade F, as evidenced by

A study on the patterns of richness, diversity and abundance of the Odonata from Santiago Dominguillo, Oaxaca is presented here. A total of 1601 specimens from six families, 26 genera and 50 species were obtained through monthly samplings of five days each. Libellulidae was the most diverse family (21 species), followed by Coenagrionidae (19), Gomphidae (4) and Calopterygidae (3). The Lestidae, Platystictidae

The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is Australia’s national biodiversity database, delivering data and related services to more than 80,000 Australian and international users annually. Established under the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy to provide trusted biodiversity data to support the research sector, its utility now extends to government, higher

Background The collections of the Natural History Museum of Maputo have a crucial role in the safeguarding of Mozambique's biodiversity, representing an important repository of data and materials regarding the natural heritage of the country. In this paper, a dataset is described, based on the Museum’s Entomological Collection recording 409 species belonging to seven orders and 48 families. Each specimen’s

Considered extinct as breeding species in the early 2000s, the Saker Falcon was recovered when the first active nest from the new history of the species in Bulgaria was discovered in 2018, formed of two birds that were re-introduced back in 2015. Currently, there is only one confirmed wild breeding pair in the country - the male from 2015 with a female changed in 2020, released again as a part of the

The current study presents and analyses the results from the recently completed 11-year-establishment phase, following the start of the local re-introduction of the Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) in Kotlenska Planina SPA and Sinite Kamani Nature Park in the Eastern Balkan Mountains of Bulgaria in the period 2010-2020. As a result of the re-introduction efforts and release of 153 individuals, the Griffon

Complete mitochondrial DNA sequence data have played a significant role in phylogenetic and evolutionary studies of scleractinian corals. In this study, the complete mitogenome of Psammocora profundacella Gardiner, 1898, collected from Guangdong Province, China, was sequenced by next-generation sequencing for the first time. Psammocora profundacella is the first species for which a mitogenome has been

Background Despite the widespread belief that an extensive body of knowledge exists for the sucking lice (Anoplura), some of their common, Eurasian or even cosmopolitan species still lack complete taxonomic descriptions, especially those for their nymphal stages. This applies especially to the most common rodent parasites: the lice of the genus Hoplopleura. In Europe, only two of the five most common

Background The macroalgal flora of the Island of São Miguel (eastern group of the Azores Archipelago) has attracted the interest of many researchers in the past, the first publications going back to the nineteenth century. Initial studies were mainly taxonomic, resulting in the publication of a checklist of the Azorean benthic marine algae. Later, the establishment of the University of the Azores on

Background The sharp increase in tourist visitation of the Azores Archipelago from 2015 onwards raised concerns about the impacts of recreational tourism on native habitats. In response, a project was financed by the Azorean Government to investigate the drivers of biodiversity erosion associated with recreational tourism. Here, we present the data on spider biodiversity found on trails located within

Background The genus Floresorchestia Bousfield, 1984 is widely distributed in terrestrial and marine coastal habitats. It has been found from coastal South Africa through to the Indo-Pacific region and the Caribbean Sea in Central America. Two species of Floresorchestia have been reported in Thailand, Floresorchestia boonyanusithii Wongkamhaeng et al. 2016 and Floresorchestia buraphana Wongkamhaeng

Background Endeis straughani Clark, 1970 was originally described from Queensland, Australia. Its range was extended to Ghana, West Africa when E. picta Bamber, 1979 was synonymised with E. straughani by Staples (1982). The current paper extends this range further, to include Port Louis, Mauritius. New information Five immature individuals gathered amongst hydroids during the 5th leg of the DY125-34

Background The Western Balkans are an important hotspot of caddisfly diversity in Europe, with several microscale endemics, many of which were discovered during the recent years. The genus Potamophylax Wallengren, 1891 likely originated and diversified in Europe, with the Balkan Peninsula being one of the most important diversity hotspots. New information In this paper, we describe the new species

A previously unrecorded native species, Scirpus radicans (Cyperaceae), was discovered in the southern part of Lithuania in 2020. Although this species has a large distribution area in other parts of Eurasia, it is currently recognised as threatened in many European countries. Recordings of S. radicans in Lithuania had been expected, as these plants do occur or have been reported to occur in neighbouring

The liverwort flora of Ayan was first investigated one hundred and fifty years after the first exploration of vascular plants. A number of factors has determined the relatively high taxonomic diversity of liverworts in this hemiarctic flora of small-sized area: 118 species and one subspecies were revealed. These data are new not only for the studied area, but also for the huge land adjacent to the

Background Varronia bellonis (Urb.) Britton is a lianescent or recumbent shrub that is endemic to Puerto Rico where it is restricted to specific geology types with a limited extent on the western half of the Island. The species occurs on serpentinite geology covered by serpentine-derived soils in the west-central mountains and on limestone geology in the the northern karst region. The species area

Background The current data paper aims to interlink the African plant collections of the Meise Botanic Garden Herbarium (BR) and the Royal Museum for Central Africa Xylarium (Tw). Complementing both collections strengthens the reference value of each institutional collection, as more complete metadata are made available and it enables increased quality control for the identification of wood specimens

This study was conducted to see whether herpetofaunal assemblage differed amongst hiking trails, undisturbed forest and urban areas within the Margalla Hills National Park, Islamabad Capital Territory, Pakistan. Circular plot area-constrained searches (45 plots in each habitat, each plot with an area of 25 m2) were used from March 2018 to July 2019. We recorded seven amphibian species, nine lizard

Background In this study, we introduce a novel genus, Paraeutypella, of the family Diatrypaceae comprising three species viz. Paraeutypella guizhouensis sp. nov. and P. citricola (basionym: Eutypella citricola) and P. vitis (basionym: Sphaeria vitis). Diatrypella longiasca sp. nov. is also introduced, which forms a distinct clade in Diatrypella sensu stricto. The discovery of this new genus will contribute

Based on a recent field survey in Iraqi Kurdistan and a critical evaluation of previously published data, 37 mayfly species are listed as occurring in Iraq. We collected and identified nine species as new for the country and corrected some previously published records. For several species scarcely treated in the literature, we provide information allowing their identification in the larval stage to

Compared to the leaf-miners and stem-miners on flowering plants, the miners on ferns (including both Lycopodiophyta and Polypodiophyta in the broad sense) are less known. Knowledge of miners and their host plants is essential to fully understand plant-insect interactions. Although there are many scattered records on fern miners, a worldwide checklist has not been reported. We provide a preliminary

Background The algal flora of the Island of Santa Maria (eastern group of the Azores archipelago) has attracted interest of researchers on past occasions (Drouët 1866, Agardh 1870, Trelease 1897, Schmidt 1931, Ardré et al. 1974, Fralick and Hehre 1990, Neto et al. 1991, Morton and Britton 2000, Amen et al. 2005, Wallenstein and Neto 2006, Tittley et al. 2009, Wallenstein et al. 2009a, Wallenstein et

Background This study systematically catalogues all known taxa of the family Stratiomyidae in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It is one in a series of planned studies aiming to catalogue the whole order in both countries. New information Twenty species, belonging to seven genera and three subfamilies (Pachygastrinae, Stratiomyinae and Nemotelinae), are treated. One of these genera, Oplodontha and two species

Background Testate amoebae are a polyphyletic group of protists living preferentially in soils, freshwaters and wetlands. These Protozoa have a worldwide distribution, but their presence and diversity in the Azores (a remote oceanic archipelago) is poorly known, with only twelve taxa recorded so far. The published information reflects occasional collections from sporadic field visits from naturalists

Background During the investigation of forest insects in Guilin, Guangxi, encyrtid parasitoid wasps belonging to the genus Psyllaephagus were reared from Macrohomotoma sinica (Hemiptera: Homotomidae) feeding on Ficus concinna. New information A new species of Psyllaephagus Howard (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), P. guangxiensis Zu sp. nov., is described from Guangxi, China as a parasitoid of Macrohomotoma

Background Hybridization is an evolutionary event present in the natural world. Several studies suggest that natural hybridization is an important process in plant evolution, creating new genetic combinations which can play a vital role in speciation (Soltis and Soltis 2009, Soltis 2013, Neri et al. 2017, Taylor and Larson 2019). Therefore, it is important to understand and protect naturally occurring

Background Within tropical shallow-water coral reefs, marine sponges provide microhabitats for a wide range of fauna. Although there have been numerous studies and reports of symbiotic relationships amongst sponges and their associated fauna, those pieces of information are isolated and disconnected. For this reason, based on the available literature, we compiled a species-interaction dataset of coral

Background Several lists of marine fish from Azores have been published in the past. Most of those publications are difficult to access on line and several were not published in peer-reviewed journals. New information This checklist updates all the chondrichthyan records for the Azores Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), according to the most recent taxonomic classification of cartilaginous fish, as well

Background Since the first published comprehensive checklist of Azorean fishes - covering the whole Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) region - several new records have been published and an updated checklist published in 2010. This new dataset covers all confirmed species of actinopterygians for the Azorean EEZ. New information In this update, we made corrections to the previous checklists, updated the

Stoneflies (Plecoptera) are often associated with inhabiting cold perennial streams, but many species also inhabit intermittent streams that experience reduced or lack of flow during summer and autumn. In this study, the influence of stream permanence on stonefly assemblage composition and spatial distribution at Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, USA, was addressed, based on a 14 month sampling

Background In this paper, we present an extensive checklist of selected arthropods and their distribution in five Islands of the Azores (Santa Maria. São Miguel, Terceira, Flores and Pico). Habitat surveys included five herbaceous and four arboreal habitat types, scaling up from native to anthropogenic managed habitats. We aimed to contribute to the ongoing effort to document the terrestrial biodiversity

Background Taxonomy and diversity of Evaniidae from India have not been studied in depth and hosts of many species are unknown. Out of 31 world genera, only five genera (Evania Fab., Prosevania Kieffer, Szepligetella Bradley, Vernevania Huben & Deans and Zeuxevania Kieffer) are reported from India. Based on the collection deposited in the Hymenoptera section of Zoological Survey of India (National

Background The Xisha Islands are composed of the Yongle Islands and the Xuande Islands in Hainan Province, China. It has one of the highest species diversity in the world and is also a typical oceanic distribution area of coral reefs globally. The ichthyofauna of the Xisha Islands were recorded by underwater visual census in May 2019 and July 2020. The survey data were combined with previous records

Background Here we present a revised species checklist for the Brassicaceae, updated from Warwick SI, Francis, A, Al-Shehbaz IA (2006), Brassicaceae: Species checklist and database on CD-ROM, Plant Systematics and Evolution 259: 249─25. This update of the checklist was initiated, based on recent taxonomic and molecular studies on the Brassicaceae that have resulted in new species names, combinations

This work is a first approach to the knowledge of insects and other aquatic macroinvertebrates of rice agroecosystems from eastern Uruguay. The composition of the groups collected may represent an approximation to the knowledge of the quality of water sources associated with Uruguayan rice production. Sampling of aquatic macroinvertebrates was carried out during the grain-filling stage in crops without

Background Species lists are fundamental for knowledge of species diversity in regions subject to intense anthropogenic pressure, especially in poorly-studied ecosystems. The dataset comes from an inventory conducted in 30 fragments of Myrtaceae swamp forest, located in an agroforestry matrix landscape of the coastal La Araucanía Region in Chile. The data collection was carried out using line transect

Background Thunbergia grandiflora belongs to the family Acanthaceae and is a widely distributed dicotyledonous plant in tropical and subtropical regions. Three isolates of Allophoma (Dothideomycetes, Pleosporales, Didymellaceae) were collected from leaves of T. grandiflora in Guangxi Province, China. New information Phylogenetic analyses of a combined ITS–LSU–rpb2–tub2 dataset indicate that one of

The Western Himalaya is recognised for its biological diversity and ecological values. An attempt was made to understand the avian diversity distribution in Forest, Agriculture and Water stream habitats of Dehradun (Western Himalaya) Uttarakhand. A total of two hundred and thirty one species belonging to 54 families were encountered during the survey. Out of these, one endangered species (Egyptian

Background The lace bug species Acalypta marginata (Wolff, 1804) has, to date, been widely known to occur in the Palaearctic Region, but has not been recorded from Japan. New information Acalypta marginata is recorded from Japan for the first time. Its habitat in Japan is the grassland of Hokkaido. A key to the species of Acalypta occurring in Japan is provided.

We conducted shotgun metagenomics sequencing of the maize rhizosphere and bulk soils in Ventersdorp, South Africa. Information on the structural composition and functional capabilities of microbial communities in the maize rhizosphere are provided by the data. Characterising the functional potentials of rhizosphere microbiomes gives an opportunity to link the microbiome to plant growth and health and

Background The increasing access to autonomously-operated technologies offer vast opportunities to sample large volumes of biological data. However, these technologies also impose novel demands on ecologists who need to apply tools for data management and processing that are efficient, publicly available and easy to use. Such tools are starting to be developed for a wider community and here we present

Background Twenty-two native Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) occur in specific dry environments of Madeira Archipelago, like Desembarcadouro islet in Ponta de São Lourenço and Chão islet in Desertas Islands. Nine of them share the same gene pool with crop species included in Annex I of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Amongst them, Beta patula Aiton, an IUCN Critically

Background The current climate change has marked impacts on the phenology of species, i.e. the timing of the various stages of their life cycle. Yet, to fully understand how phenological patterns can be modified according to changes in temperature regimes, it is of prime importance to rely on high quality historical data. Here, we propose a very valuable dataset including individual monitoring from

Background Environmental crisis challenges the human race harder than ever before. Ecologists have produced a massive amount of data to cope with the crisis. Accordingly, many national scale ecological database systems have been developed worldwide to manage and analyse these datasets. However, in Korea, ecological datasets produced by different research institutes for different purposes have not been

Background The flat bark beetles (Coleoptera: Cucujidae) is a small insect family with only about 70 species. Most of the species are distributed in Holarctic, Oriental and/or Australasian realms, while in South America, only six species have been recorded, including a single one known from Peru. New information Two cucujid beetle species, Palaestes abruptus Sharp, 1899 and P. nicaraguae Sharp, 1899

The leaf beetle Chrysolina (Chrysolinopsis) americana (Linnaeus, 1758), commonly known as the Rosemary beetle, is native to some parts of the Mediterranean region. In the last few decades, it has expanded its distribution to new regions in the North and Eastern Mediterranean basin. Chrysolina americana feeds on plants of the Lamiaceae family, such as Rosmarinus officinalis, Lavandula spp., Salvia spp

Background Freshwater diversity, and diatoms in particular, from Desertas Islands (Madeira Archipelago, Portugal) is poorly known, although the Islands are protected and became a Natural Reserve in 1995. During two field expeditions in 2013 and 2014 to Deserta Grande Island, several freshwater and terrestrial habitats were sampled. The analysis of these samples aims to contribute to the biodiversity

Background 1. Colombia with 1941 known recorded bird species is one of the most species rich countries in the world. Efforts are necessary to conserve, study and promote sustainable use of this important taxonomic group throughout Colombia’s vast territory. 2. In an ideal world, informed decisions that are based on sound scientific information should be likelier to have successful outcomes. Nevertheless

Background The algal flora of the western group of the Azores archipelago (Islands of Flores and Corvo) has attracted the interest of many researchers on numerous past occasions (such as Drouet 1866, Trelease 1897, Gain 1914, Schmidt 1929, Schmidt 1931, Azevedo et al. 1990, Fralick and Hehre 1990, Neto and Azevedo 1990, Neto and Baldwin 1990, Neto 1996, Neto 1997, Neto 1999, Tittley and Neto 1996,

Background Iridopsis Warren, 1894 (Lepidoptera: Geometridae: Ennominae: Boarmiini) is a New World moth genus mainly diversified in the Neotropical Region. It is represented in Chile by two described species, both from the Atacama Desert. New information Iridopsis socoromaensis sp. n. (Lepidoptera: Geometridae: Ennominae: Boarmiini) is described and illustrated from the western slopes of the Andes of

Background Previously, two species of Zygentoma have been reported as synanthropic in Estonia (Lepisma saccharinum Linnaeus, 1758 and Thermobia domestica (Packard, 1873)). Ctenolepisma longicaudatum Escherich, 1905 is an invasive species that is currently expanding its range in Europe, but had no published records from the northern Baltic Region. New information Ctenolepisma longicaudatum was first