The Asian bamboo-feeding leafhopper Trifida bilobata Ohara, 2014 from Japan, is recorded for the first time in several European countries (Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and Serbia). Morphology and ecology of the collected specimens in Europe are presented.

Trends in abundance and changes in the distribution of the Northeast Europe/ Northwest Europe Bewick's Swan Cygnus columbianus bewickii population have been studied in detail since the second half of the 20th century, but much less is known about the Northwestern Siberia/Caspian population which was estimated at 1,000- 1,500 individuals at the turn of the century. Here, we describe the results of the first species-specific mid-winter International Bewick's Swan Census (IBSC) covering the East Mediterranean to Central Asia, made in January 2020. We also use longer-term data collated by Wetlands International through the annual International Waterbird Census (IWC) programme to construct trends in wintering numbers in the region. Results from the IBSC and IWC both showed a marked increase in population size for the Northwestern Siberia/Caspian Bewick's Swans over the past two decades. A total of 6,819 was recorded during the IBSC and there was a five-year mean of 9,111 +/- 4,300 swans reported to the IWC (for the years 2018-2022) with a peak count of 13,775 in 2019. An aerial survey of the Volga Delta in the northern Caspian Sea in 2020, rarely covered because of the logistical difficulties of carrying out midwinter counts in the region, found an estimated 551 Bewick's Swans wintering at the site. There was marked annual variation in the IWC counts recorded from 2017 onwards, although the reasons for these fluctuations remain unknown. Trends analysis suggested a slow increase over time from 2000-2015, followed by a period of rapid increase during 2015-2017, then a weak decline in 2017-2022. Given that the IBSC and the IWC have provided totals of > 6,000 Bewick's Swans in five of the last six years, however, we propose that the new population estimate should be increased to 6,000-13,000 birds, pending further comprehensive surveys of the whole region.

Biology education worldwide at different levels involves learning to identify plants and animals in nature. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a teaching and learning method for bird identification that combines active outdoor fieldwork with active online learning, testing the validity of our instrument. Altogether, 798 of 853 students with different cultural and socio-political backgrounds from nine countries participated in 2010-2018. The research method was an online bird identification test at the beginning of the study, an online test and a field test at the end of the field teaching period, and an online exam at the end of the study. The results showed great progression from the beginning to the exam at the end of the study, and a positive correlation between initial skills and exam skills. Finally, the field test showed a strong positive correlation with the online test taken simultaneously, thus indicating that functional competence can be measured in the online exam. We recommend our instrument for teaching and testing of students' skills in species identification worldwide and for all taxa, but further testing of validity and teaching effects is recommended.

Sea-level rise (SLR) is expected to cause major changes to coastal wetlands, which are among the world's most vulnerable ecosystems and are critical for nonbreeding waterbirds. Because strategies for adaptation to SLR, such as nature-based solutions and designation of protected areas, can locally reduce the negative effects of coastal flooding under SLR on coastal wetlands, it is crucial to prioritize adaptation efforts, especially for wetlands of international importance for biodiversity. We assessed the exposure of coastal wetlands important for nonbreeding waterbirds to projected SLR along the Mediterranean coasts of 8 countries by modeling future coastal flooding under 7 scenarios of SLR by 2100 (from 44- to 161-cm rise) with a static inundation approach. Exposure to coastal flooding under future SLR was assessed for 938 Mediterranean coastal sites (≤30 km from the coastline) where 145 species of nonbreeding birds were monitored as part of the International Waterbird Census and for which the monitoring area was delineated by a polygon (64.3% of the coastal sites monitored in the Mediterranean region). Thirty-four percent of sites were threatened by future SLR, even under the most optimistic scenarios. Protected study sites and study sites of international importance for waterbirds were, respectively, 1.5 and 2 times more exposed to SLR than the other sites under the most optimistic scenario. Accordingly, we advocate for the development of a prioritization scheme to be applied to these wetlands for the implementation of strategies for adaptation to SLR to anticipate the effects of coastal flooding. Our study provides major guidance for conservation planning under global change in several countries of the Mediterranean region.

Consulting the best available evidence is key to successful conservation decision-making. While much scientific evidence on conservation continues to be published in non-English languages, a poor understanding of how non-English-language science contributes to conservation decision-making is causing global assessments and studies to practically ignore non-English-language literature. By investigating the use of scientific literature in biodiversity assessment reports across 37 countries/territories, we have uncovered the established role of non-English-language literature as a major source of information locally. On average, non-English-language literature constituted 65% of the references cited, and these were recognized as relevant knowledge sources by 75% of report authors. This means that by ignoring non-English-language science, international assessments may overlook important information on local and/or regional biodiversity. Furthermore, a quarter of the authors acknowledged the struggles of understanding English-language literature. This points to the need to aid the use of English-language literature in domestic decision-making, for example, by providing non-English-language abstracts or improving and/or implementing machine translation. (This abstract is also avaialble in 21 other languages in Supplementary Data 4 ).

Thermal adjustment of waterbird communities to climate warming is crucial but hampered by natural habitat conversion, increasing their climatic debt. As it is, in contrast, facilitated in protected areas, assessing the adequacy of the current protected areas network with respect to future climate and land-use changes and identifying priority sites to protect is of major importance. In this study, we assess the thermal adjustment limitations that non-breeding waterbird communities might experience by the end of the 21st century in the Mediterranean region to highlight priorities for wetland protection. Priorities were set by combining the exposure of waterbird communities to natural habitat conversion and climate warming with their thermal specialization. The latter was calculated using winter abundance data of 151 species from 2932 sites of the International Waterbird Census in 21 Mediterranean countries. Exposure was assessed using future projections of temperature and land-use under four CMIP6 scenarios (SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, SSP3–7.0, and SSP5–8.5). We found that strictly protected areas are located in wetlands whose waterbird communities, without protection, would likely experience high limitations in thermal adjustment in the coming decades. This highlights that the location of existing protected areas may effectively support the thermal adjustment of waterbird communities to future climate warming. However, 490 sites considered at risk lack protection, including 32 sites of international importance for waterbirds, stressing the need to strengthen the protected areas network in these sites in priority. Our study provides important guidance for conservation planning in the Mediterranean region to support waterbird responses to climate change.

Climate warming is driving changes in species distributions and community composition. Many species have a so-called climatic debt, that is, shifts in range lag behind shifts in temperature isoclines. Inside protected areas (PAs), community changes in response to climate warming can be facilitated by greater colonization rates by warm-dwelling species, but also mitigated by lowering extirpation rates of cold-dwelling species. An evaluation of the relative importance of colonization-extirpation processes is important to inform conservation strategies that aim for both climate debt reduction and species conservation. We assessed the colonization-extirpation dynamics involved in community changes in response to climate inside and outside PAs. To do so, we used 25 years of occurrence data of nonbreeding waterbirds in the western Palearctic (97 species, 7071 sites, 39 countries, 1993-2017). We used a community temperature index (CTI) framework based on species thermal affinities to investigate species turnover induced by temperature increase. We determined whether thermal community adjustment was associated with colonization by warm-dwelling species or extirpation of cold-dwelling species by modeling change in standard deviation of the CTI (CTISD ). Using linear mixed-effects models, we investigated whether communities in PAs had lower climatic debt and different patterns of community change than communities outside PAs. For CTI and CTISD combined, communities inside PAs had more species, higher colonization, lower extirpation, and lower climatic debt (16%) than communities outside PAs. Thus, our results suggest that PAs facilitate 2 independent processes that shape community dynamics and maintain biodiversity. The community adjustment was, however, not sufficiently fast to keep pace with the large temperature increases in the central and northeastern western Palearctic. Our results underline the potential of combining CTI and CTISD metrics to improve understanding of the colonization-extirpation patterns driven by climate warming.

The painted maple aphid, Drepanaphis acerifoliae (Thomas, 1878), is present on Acer saccharinum L. (silver maple) in Serbia. It was found for the first time in 2019 in parks in Novi Sad, and in 2020 it was registered in Belgrade. It is a North American species that has been extending its distribution in Europe since 1992. Serbia is the fourth European country in which it has been found, following Italy, Spain and Hungary. Drepanaphis acerifoliae was found to be present on all examined A. saccharinum L. trees where it is usually very numerous. It was not found on A. platanoides L., A. campestre L., A. pseudoplatanus L. or A. negundo L. The morphology of viviparous parthenogenetic females, oviparous females and males is presented, with original drawings and photos.

The Mediterranean Basin is a biodiversity hotspot. Wetlands make a key contribution to this status, but many of them remain outside the Ramsar network fifty years after the establishment of the Ramsar Convention. Here we evaluate the extent to which the Mediterranean Ramsar network covers wetlands of international importance for wintering waterbirds using the Ramsar Convention criteria 2 (species of conservation concern), 5 (> 20,000 waterbirds) and 6 (1% of a population). These criteria were applied to 4186 sites in 24 Mediterranean countries using counts of 145 wintering waterbird species from 1991 to 2017. We identified 161 sites of international importance for waterbirds that have not yet been declared as Ramsar sites, which could be added to the 180 current Mediterranean Ramsar sites established based on waterbird criteria (criteria 5 and/or 6). Among these sites, a subset of 32 very important sites reached double the required level for at least one criterion and 95 were not protected by any site conservation status. Coastal wetlands represented half of the Ramsar gap for waterbirds. We identified that an additional 1218 monitored sites could be provisionally considered as internationally important and thus require more survey efforts to assess their status. This study highlights a lack of participation of the Mediterranean countries to build the Ramsar network for wetland protection. Our results should help policymakers and managers to prioritize future Ramsar site designation, notably in the Middle East and Western European region where important gaps were identified.

Climate warming is driving changes in species distributions, although many species show a so-called climatic debt, where their range shifts lag behind the fast shift in temperature isoclines. Protected areas (PAs) may impact the rate of distribution changes both positively and negatively. At the cold edges of species distributions, PAs can facilitate species distribution changes by increasing the colonization required for distribution change. At the warm edges, PAs can mitigate the loss of species, by reducing the local extinction of vulnerable species. To assess the importance of PAs to affect species distribution change, we evaluated the changes in a non-breeding waterbird community as a response to temperature increase and PA status, using changes of species occurrence in the Western-Palearctic over 25 years (97 species, 7,071 sites, 39 countries, 1993– 2017). We used a community temperature index (CTI) framework based on species thermal affinities to investigate the species turn-over induced by temperature increase. In addition, we measured whether the thermal community adjustment was led by cold-dwelling species extinction and/or warm-dwelling species colonization, by modelling the change in standard deviation of the CTI (CTI sd ). Using linear mixed-effects models, we investigated whether communities within PAs had lower climatic debt and different patterns of community change regarding the local PA surface. Thanks to the combined use of the CTI and CTI sd , we found that communities inside PAs had more species, higher colonization, lower extinction and the climatic debt was 16% lower than outside PAs. The results suggest the importance of PAs to facilitate warm-dwelling species colonization and attenuate cold-dwelling species extinction. The community adjustment was however not sufficiently fast to keep pace with the strong temperature increase in central and northeastern Western-Palearctic regions. Our study underlines the potential of the combined CTI and CTI sd metrics to understand the colonization-extinction patterns driven by climate warming.

The manuscript encloses the first finding of the leafhopper Arboridia kakogawana (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadellidae: Typhlocybinae) in Serbia. On total of four sites in Vojvodina, identification based on the morphological characters gave us data on the presence of this allochtonous species that was previously detected in Romania and Crimean peninsula. Arboridia kakogawana is known as the grapevine pest and it was observed in Serbia on two localities on damaged grapevine plants expressing characteristic symptoms of its presence such as intensive chlorotic patches. Individuals were collected using entomological nets and light traps.

The species Acrosternum heegeri Fieber, 1861 is a well-known member of the Mediterranean fauna in Europe and until recently was not recorded outside its natural range. In recent years, the presence of stable populations of the species in Budapest has been confirmed, and the first findings on the territory of Serbia are from 2013, when several overwintering adults were found under the bark of deciduous trees in Novi Sad. Since 2017, active individuals have been recorded throughout the season, for now mainly from the area of ​​Vojvodina. This bug is probably conquering new territories by transporting people and goods, but we assume that climate change is also responsible for establishing stable populations in new environments. The paper presents the findings of the species A. heegeri in Serbia, which were taken from the Alciphron database on insects in Serbia. A. heegeri is a polyphagous herbivore and has the status of an economically significant species in the Middle East because it causes damage in pistachio plantations.

Migratory waterbirds require an effectively conserved cohesive network of wetland areas throughout their range and life-cycle. Under rapid climate change, protected area (PA) networks need to be able to accommodate climate-driven range shifts in wildlife if they are to continue to be effective in the future. Thus, we investigated geographical variation in the relationship between local temperature anomaly and the abundance of 61 waterbird species during the wintering season across Europe and North Africa during 1990–2015. We also compared the spatio-temporal effects on abundance of sites designated as PAs, Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), both, or neither designation (Unlisted). Waterbird abundance was positively correlated with temperature anomaly, with this pattern being strongest towards north and east Europe. Waterbird abundance was higher inside IBAs, whether they were legally protected or not. Trends in waterbird abundance were also consistently more positive inside both protected and unprotected IBAs across the whole study region, and were positive in Unlisted wetlands in southwestern Europe and North Africa. These results suggest that IBAs are important sites for wintering waterbirds, but also that populations are shifting to unprotected wetlands (some of which are IBAs). Such IBAs may therefore represent robust candidate sites to expand the network of legally protected wetlands under climate change in north-eastern Europe. These results underscore the need for monitoring to understand how the effectiveness of site networks is changing under climate change.

During a 2019 survey of the Auchenorrhyncha fauna in Serbia, three alien species were recorded for the first time: a leafhopper species of Asian origin Orientus ishidae (Cicadellidae, Deltocephalinae) and two North American species, Acanalonia conica (Acanaloniidae) and Erasmoneura vulnerata (Cicadellidae, Typhlocybinae). Besides these first findings, the presence of the leafhopper Phlogotettix cyclops (Cicadellidae, Deltocephalinae) was confirmed in Serbia after its initial record more than a century ago. Other allochthonous species already known to be present in local entomofauna were also found: Japananus hyalinus (Cicadellidae, Deltocephalinae), Scaphoideus titanus (Cicadellidae, Typhlocybinae), Stictocephala bisonia (Membracidae) and Metcalfa pruinosa (Flatidae). The newly detected Auchenorrhyncha species in Serbia, O. ishidae, A. conica and E. vulnerata, as well as Ph. cyclops, are recognized as either tentative or true grapevine pests in Europe that cause physical damage or induce phytoplasma-borne diseases. Our findings reveal a potential phytosanitary risk that can emerge in Serbian vineyards in upcoming years and support refocused research of Auchenorrhyncha diversity in natural habitats, rather than in agroecosystems and their immediate surroundings.

U ovom radu dati su prvi prikazi faune leptira u neposrednoj zoni predviđenoj za gradnju mini-hidrocentralana rijekama Sutjesci i Hrčavki u Nacionalnom parku Sutjeska. U kratkom vremenskom intervalu,u samo jednom dijelu sezone, na uniformnom tipu staništa zabilježeno je 68 vrsta dnevnih i 48 vrstanoćnih leptira, što ukazuje na izuzetan biološki potencijal. Sedam vrsta dnevnih i 47 noćnih su prvi putzabilježene u Nacionalnom parku Sutjeska, dok je postojanje dvije vrste roda Apatura potvrđeno poslijeviše od sto godina. Pronađene su neke od vrsta sa Crvene liste Republike Srpske, kao i Natura 2000vrste. Kako su leptiri jako osjetljivi na bilo kakve promjene u staništu, bili bi dobar bioindikator uticajaprocesa izgradnje.

U dosadašnjim istraživanjima faune ptica Nacionalnog parka „Sutjeska“ nedostaju ili su rijetkaistraživanja duž vodenih staništa, poput planinskih vodotoka i planinskih jezera, koja su ovom prilikomdetaljnije studirana. Tokom ljeta 2015. i 2016. godine proučavana je fauna ptica duž rijeka Sutjeske iHrčavke, te na pet glacijalnih jezera. Ukupno je registrovano 78 vrsta ptica, od čega je 9 vrsta novih zanacionalni park. Od ukupno do danas registrovanih 118 vrsta, 108 su moguće, vjerovatne ili potvrđenegnjezdarice parka, a najznačajnije moguće, vjerovatne ili potvrđene gnjezdarice zabilježene u toku ovogistraživanja su dnevne grabljivice (Pernis apivorus, Circaetus gallicus, Aquila pennata, Aquila chrysaetos,Falco peregrinus), zatim prdavac (Crex crex), polojka (Actitis hypoleucos), od sova buljina (Bubo bubo), aod djetlića indikator očuvanih planinskih šuma, planinski djetlić (Dendrocopos leucotos).

National accounts suggest that the Common Pochard Aythya ferina was an uncommon breeding bird throughout western Europe before 1850. Extensions to the breeding range in the late 19th century were potentially aided by the rapid development of managed fish-ponds in eastern Europe, which provided suitable novel habitat at that time. Expansion into western Europe followed in subsequent decades. Wetland and waterbody eutrophication throughout Europe, which likely provided food and cover for the birds, may have accelerated the rapid expansion from the 1950s until the early 1980s. Widespread declines in the last 30 years, especially in eastern Europe, where breeding numbers are highest, are possibly linked to intensification and/or abandonment of freshwater fish farming and changes in water quality. Studies show that Pochard gain fitness benefits from nesting in Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus colonies and hence has been affected by major losses of European gull colonies in the last 30 years. The spread of alien fish species such as the Carp Cyprinus carpi, which compete with Pochard for food resources, is a problem in the Mediterranean region. Changing predation pressures (in some cases linked to invasive alien mammals) are also implicated in some areas. Relatively modest numbers breeding in the UK, France and the Netherlands have remained stable or increased over the same recent span of years, confirming that different factors currently affect Pochard breeding abundance throughout its range. We urgently need better information relating to key factors affecting Pochard breeding success and abundance, which is currently showing an unfavourable conservation status throughout much of Europe.

Autumn populations of two large branchiopod species, Branchinecta orientalis and Chirocephalus diaphanus in the area of southern part of Central European Lowlands (Pannonian Plain) are here reported for the first time. During surveys carried out in 2007-2013, autumn populations were observed in November 2009 (C. diaphantts) and in October 2012 (B. oriental is). Autumn specimens were smaller compared to those caught in spring. Although the two species were found in the same area, their habitats were spatially separated: B. orientalis was recorded only in the soda lake Rusanda, while C. diaphanus was found only in small ephemeral ponds placed over the surrounding meadows. Appearance of autumn populations point to the ecologically tolerant character of these species, and suggests they are able to tolerate lower temperatures during growth.

Abstract In January 2014, the first ever comprehensive winter census of the Whitetailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla along the Danube River was conducted, using mostly point and transect counts. Altogether, 550-700 eagles were counted. The upper range of the estimate may in fact be more realistic because 615 km of the Danube were not surveyed. Birds were observed in every country along the Danube. Hotspots of occurrences were (1) the Central Danube floodplains - the area encompassing the lower Hungarian section (Danube- Drava National Park), Kopački rit Nature Park (Croatia), and the Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve (Serbia); and (2) the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve. According to the Action Plan for the conservation of the White-tailed Eagle along the Danube, future winter counts should be made regularly, and lower variation in the resulting eagle numbers achieved by a higher degree of synchronization between individual countries. This study reinforces the importance of protected areas along the Danube as a backbone for the conservation of White-tailed Eagles and biodiversity.