Adele Bordoni

Entomophilous mass-flowering crops such as rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) may especially benefit from Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management (IPPM) programs aimed at protecting the crop while reducing pollinator exposure to harmful pesticides. Yellow sticky trap barriers around field edges might represent an insecticide-free method of controlling immigrating pests. In this pilot study, we set up two experimental plots in a rapeseed agroecosystem in Northern Italy, comparing sticky traps with an insecticide treatment (acetamiprid), considering pest incidence/damage, pollinators/pollination services and yield. Sticky traps were associated with lower numbers of spring-immigrating pests (pollen beetles, weevils) and a lower percentage of seed pod damage. Overall yield was nonetheless higher in the insecticide treatment plot, possibly due to autumn-immigrating pest species which could be controlled by the insecticide but not by the sticky trap barrier (installed in spring). We found no significant effect of the treatments on pollinators or pollination, although plants treated with insecticide showed a higher average pollination deficit. Overall, our pilot study highlighted potential in yellow sticky traps as an IPPM measure, but they showed some limits—implying they would need to be paired with complementary methods, or to be installed earlier to intercept also autumn-immigrating pests.

We present a browser-based curation tool (Library Curation Tool) developed to support expert validation of taxonomic records derived from the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). This tool forms a critical component of a two-step approach designed within the EU Horizon Europe project Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE) to build a high-quality, curated DNA barcode reference library for European species. The upstream component—a bioinformatics pipeline described in a companion publication—automatically filters, cleans, and ranks BOLD records based on metadata completeness, sequence quality, and taxonomic consistency. However, certain complex cases, such as misidentifications, nomenclatorial problems (e.g. synonymy), BIN-sharing (multiple species sharing one BIN) or BIN-splitting (a single species associated with multiple BINs), cannot be fully resolved by automated methods and require expert judgment. Our Library Curation Tool enables taxonomic experts to interactively inspect, validate, or exclude individual records, update species names, assign curation statuses, and provide curator notes. The tool supports real-time statistics for BIN conflicts and dynamically updates curation metrics as the expert interacts with the data. Its user interface is designed to simplify the review of large datasets while ensuring consistency, traceability, and minimal risk of structural errors common in spreadsheet-based curation workflows. The curated output from this tool, combined with the automated pipeline, forms the foundation of a reference library suitable for accurate DNA-based species identification in biodiversity monitoring and ecological studies. By integrating expert knowledge into a standardized and scalable interface, the tool supports distributed community curation of DNA barcode reference data. Although currently implemented as a local application, the workflow is designed to facilitate the consolidation of expert annotations into shared, FAIR-compliant reference libraries and future integration with community infrastructures such as BOLD and BOLD-Europe.

Aim: Comparison between islands and equivalent mainland areas to dissect the effect of area, isolation and species traits in determining island genetic endemicity and genetic differentiation. Location: The Western Mediterranean region. Time Period: Current. Major Taxa Studied: Butterflies (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea). Methods: We analysed 10,367 COI sequences from 105 species, 34 islands and 47 sea straits, along with four functional species traits. We compared determinants of genetic diversity (nucleotide diversity, NucDiv ), endemic mutations (EM) and the Dst fixation index between island populations and similarly sized mainland populations (Continental Area Equivalents, CAEs). Generalised linear mixed models tested fixed effects and interactions of island characteristics and species traits. We also evaluated whether population‐level effects (individual species increasing differentiation with island size and isolation) or community‐level effects (larger, less isolated islands hosting more genetically divergent species) better explain observed island patterns. Results: CAEs and islands exhibited highly distinct genetic signatures. NucDiv was higher in CAEs while Dst was higher across sea straits than between land areas separating CAEs, particularly for larger islands and non‐migratory species. EM increased with island area, especially in non‐migratory and small species. Island communities were significantly nested. Widespread species also showed lower genetic variation, thus producing a strong community‐level effect. The population‐level effects showed a weaker effect. Counterintuitively, increasing isolation did not increase divergence, as both processes tended to reduce genetic differentiation in more isolated islands. Main Conclusions: Comparing islands with CAEs reveals that even narrow sea barriers of a few kilometres greatly reduce gene flow in non‐migratory butterflies, increasing genetic differentiation to a greater extent than similar mainland distances. After controlling for the presence of sea straits, island size predicts genetic divergence while increasing isolation does not. Overall, endemicity remains low, indicating that mainland‐driven genetic turnover, rather than in situ evolution, dominates insular genetic patterns.

The Tuscan Archipelago is an insular system located between the Tuscan mainland and Corsica and composed of seven major islands and several islets differing widely in size, distance from the two ma...

We present a browser-based curation tool developed to support expert validation of taxonomic records derived from the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). This tool forms a critical component of a two-step approach designed within the EU Horizon Europe project Biodiversity Genomics Europe (BGE) to build a high-quality, curated DNA barcode reference library for European species. The upstream component—a bioinformatics pipeline described in a companion publication—automatically filters, cleans, and ranks BOLD records based on metadata completeness, sequence quality, and taxonomic consistency. However, certain complex cases, such as misidentifications, nomenclatorial problems (e.g. synonymy), BIN-sharing (multiple species sharing one BIN) or BIN-splitting (a single species associated with multiple BINs), cannot be fully resolved by automated methods and require expert judgment. Our curation tool enables taxonomic experts to interactively inspect, validate, or exclude individual records, update species names, assign curation statuses, and provide curator notes. The tool supports real-time statistics for BIN conflicts and dynamically updates curation metrics as the expert interacts with the data. Its user interface is designed to simplify the review of large datasets while ensuring consistency, traceability, and minimal risk of structural errors common in spreadsheet-based curation workflows. The curated output from this tool, combined with the automated pipeline, forms the foundation of a reference library suitable for accurate DNA-based species identification in biodiversity monitoring and ecological studies. By integrating expert knowledge into a standardized and scalable interface, the tool supports the creation of FAIR, version-controlled reference libraries essential in the era of accelerating biodiversity loss and declining taxonomic capacity.

Pollinators are declining globally, highlighting the urgent need for accurate methods to monitor their densities and abundances. Distance sampling (DS) is a promising, non‐invasive method for estimating insect population abundances, but its estimates have not been compared with independent counts of population size to validate DS efficacy for insects. We addressed this methodological gap on Giannutri Island (Italy), where two strongly declining pollinator populations of Anthophora dispar and Bombus terrestris coexist with managed honey bees ( Apis mellifera ). DS field surveys, targeting both managed and wild bees, were conducted across 41 transects spanning five land cover types over 12 sampling days. We validated this method by verifying that the number of foraging honey bees estimated with DS is consistent with the literature reported proportion of workers outside the hives (~12.5%–20%) of the known reference population of managed colonies. Using DS, we also verified: (1) a strong consistency in abundance estimates across consecutive days; (2) significant effects of weather conditions on detected abundances and temporal trends matching the known phenology of adults in both wild species; (3) marked differences in densities across land cover types consistent with the known link between pollinator abundances and vegetation structures. In conclusion, DS offers a practical method for obtaining reliable estimates of population size for midsized to large insects when individuals can be readily observed and identified. While its applicability to smaller species and closed habitats may thus be limited, it represents a valuable tool where traditional methods are impractical.

We report the rediscovery of Megachile diabolica Friese, 1898 in Italy, 76 years after its last and only known record. A single female was collected in May 2024 in the Alta Murgia National Park (Apulia, southern Italy), an area of calcareous grasslands recognized as a hotspot of Mediterranean biodiversity for insects. Morphological identification was supported by DNA barcoding, confirming the specimen’s identity with minimal divergence (0.77%) from a Turkish haplotype. The bee was observed foraging on Asyneuma limonifolium (L.) Janch, a plant species with a limited distribution in southern Italy. This finding not only confirms the occurrence of the species in Italy but also highlights the conservation value of the Alta Murgia National Park, confirming its rich pollinator community and the remarkably low extinction rates. The coexistence of open grasslands and forested patches likely provides a microhabitat mosaic that buffers pollinator populations from increasing climatic extremes.

Local pollinator checklists are crucial for biodiversity conservation representing essential foundations for successive ecological and evolutionary studies. The Tuscan Archipelago, protected within a National Park in Italy, hosts a largely undiscovered pollinator diversity, especially on the small Giannutri Island. This study focuses on bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila), hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) and butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea). Bees on Giannutri are poorly documented, with no comprehensive checklist available, while hoverflies remain understudied across the Archipelago. Although butterfly data are more extensive, they consist mainly of sporadic records. To unveil the pollinator fauna of Giannutri, we sampled the island over four years (2021–2024), recording: 14 bee species (eight new to the island and one new to the Archipelago), 14 hoverfly species (all new to the island, three new to the Archipelago and one new to Italy) and 23 butterfly species (10 new to the island). The presence of Eumerus narcissi Smith, 1928 is of pivotal importance representing a new species for the Italian fauna. Among bees, the presence of Nomada sheppardana (Kirby, 1802) is reported for the first time in the Archipelago, while the new record of Bombus xanthopus (Kriechbaumer, 1870) extends the distribution of this sub-endemic species to a fourth island, following Corsica, Capraia, and Elba. The species richness recorded on Giannutri Island aligned with the expectations based on size and isolation in comparison with the other islands of the Archipelago. Giannutri emerges as a noteworthy component of the Tuscan Archipelago and Mediterranean biodiversity highlighting the importance of checklists in conservation studies.