This book, dedicated to Konjev Desender and Jean-Pierre Maelfait, is made up of a collection of 30 papers presented at the XIV European Carabidologists? Meeting in Westerbork, the Netherlands (September, 2009). Seventy-five specialists from 20 countries of Europe and Asia attended the meeting. Traditionally, the proceedings volumes of the European Carabidologists Meeting have become important milestones outlining the latest trends and achievements in carabidology.ÿThe aim of the organisers was to invite specialists from different countries and scientific schools to present both traditional and innovative approaches and methods in studying ground beetles. This volume includes a wide range of topics, from the description of new species, taxonomy, a summary of the activities of carabidologists during the last 40 years, biogeographical issues, methodology, behaviour, indicators, environmental issues and conservation. The book will be of use to carabidologists, specialists in traditional and molecular systematics, general and applied ecology, conservation biology, bioindication, urban ecology and biogeography.

Over the past decades, large amounts of data about carabids have been collected in the Netherlands, initially for the purpose of creating distribution maps for the country. In addition to information from collections and faunistic publications, a significant amount of data came from ecological studies using pitfall traps. Because of the rich tradition of carabidological research in the Netherlands, an exceptionally large database of these pitfall data is available. The database is a mix of approximately 1,500 short-term samples and circa 4,400 so-called 'year-samples', for which pitfalls were functional during the whole activity period of ground beetles in spring and autumn. These year-samples came from 2,850 sites, covering the period of 1953-2018, and represent all habitats on the Dutch landscape. These data offer an unusual view of the presence and activity of this common insect family. The data gathered from pitfall trapping is summarised and provides a fresh integrated perspective about the Dutch ground beetle fauna. The characteristic species composition of 17 habitat groups is described in detail. Over 320 species present in the database have been classified into six main groups, according to their patterns of habitat use. Both the classification of habitats and associated species have been tested and used in various analyses in the book. Two chapters give special attention to changes in the Dutch fauna over the past 66 years by means of extensive trend analysis and relate this understanding to nature conservation. The book provides an extension and update for Turin's (2000) atlas. The Dutch carabid fauna is discussed considering relevant literature but uses predominantly European studies to put the faunal patterns in broader context. This book presents the story of Dutch ground beetles and illustrates the contribution of pitfall trapping to our understanding of the ecology of this fascinating and unusually well-studied group of beetles.

This collection of articles, developed in association with the EU funded ViBRANT project, illustrates how advances to research infrastructures are reciprocally changing the practice of taxonomy. A detailed review of data issues in the life sciences (Thessen and Patterson 2011) sets the tone for subsequent articles in this special issue, whose contributions broadly fall into three categories. Theÿ initial articles consider some of the major infrastructure platforms that support the production and management of biodiversity data. These include the EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy, Wiki-based approaches including BioWikiFarm and the Scratchpads Virtual Research Environment. Later articles provide deeper coverage of specialist areas of interest to taxonomic and biodiversity researchers. The topics covered include the mark-up (Penev et al. 2011) and management (King et al. 2011) of taxonomic literature, geospatial assessment of species distributions (Bachman et al. 2011) and licensing issues specific to life science data (Hagedorn et al. 2011). Finally, the special issue closes with a series of research and review papers that provide detailed use cases illustrating how these research infrastructures are being put into practice. Highlights from this section include citizen science approaches to collecting species information by the COMBER Marine observation network (Arvanitidis et al. 2011) and the Australian Bush Blitz programme (Lambkin and Bartlett 2011); use of new tools for data publishing like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) and the DRYAD Data Repository; new forms of publication via ?data papers? that allow checklists and identification keys to be formally published as structured datasets (e.g., Narwade et al. 2011); and finally new taxonomic revisions and species descriptions constructed from within the collaborative systems like XPER2 and Scratchpads.

This issue of ZooKeys celebrates the 75th birthday of Alexandr P. Rasnitsyn, a pioneer in the palaeontology and phylogeny of Hymenoptera, as well as a leader generally in insect systematics and evolution. Born in Moscow, Russia, on 24 September 1936, he developed his passion for Hymenoptera at an early age. After completing his degrees in 1960 he joined the Arthropoda Laboratory in the Paleontological Institute of the USSR (now Russian) Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and worked his way from Technician to the Head of the laboratory, in this capacityÿ leading the most productive group of paleoentomologists for 28 years. He has co-authored and edited several keystone books on insect paleontology and evolution, including History of Insects (2002), the first large-scale work of its kind in English. Rasnitsyn served as the first President of the International Palaeoentomological Society, and was bestowed Honorary Membership by the Russian Entomological Society and in 2008 with the Distinguished Research Medal of the International Society of Hymenopterists. Herein colleagues from around the world have presented original contributions to the systematics of diverse insect orders, living and fossil, as a tribute to this pioneer of Hymenoptera and paleoentomological research. Numerous new taxa are described and their phylogenetic implications explored. A biographical sketch and a list of Rasnitsyn?s more than 360 scientific publications (spanning 52 years) are provided.

The Carabidae form one of the largest and best studied families of insects, occurring in nearly every terrestrial habitat. The contributions included in this book cover a broad spectrum of recent research into this beetle family, with an emphasis on various aspects of ecology and evolution. They deal both with individual carabid species, for example in studies on population and reproductive biology or life history in general, and with ground beetle communities, as exemplified in papers treating assemblages in natural habitats, on agricultural land and in forests. Disciplines range from biogeography and faunistics, over morphology, taxonomy and phylogenetics, ecophysiology and functional ecology, to population, community, conservation and landscape ecology. This volume is the result of the 8th European Carabidologists' Meeting, 2nd International Symposium of Carabidology, September 1-4, 1992, Belgium.

Insect Biodiversity: Science and Society brings togetherleading scientific experts to assess the impact insects have onhumankind and the earth’s fragile ecosystems. It examines whyinsect biodiversity matters and how the rapid evolution of insectspecies is affecting us all. Insects and related arthropods make up more than 50 percent ofthe known animal diversity globally, yet a lack of knowledge aboutinsects is hindering the advance of science and society. This bookexplores the wide variety in type and number of insect species andtheir evolutionary relationships. Case studies offer assessments onhow insect biodiversity can help meet the needs of a rapidlyexpanding human population, and also examine the consequences thatan increased loss of insect species will have on the world. The book concludes that a better understanding of the biologyand ecology of insects is the only way to sustainably manageecosystems in an ever changing global environment.

These proceedings contain papers on insect conservation biology that are classified under 3 themes: (1) the current status of insect conservation, and major avenues for progress and hindrances (6 papers); (2) insects as model organisms in conservation biology (6 papers); and (3) future directions in insect conservation biology (6 papers).