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Declines in European bird populations are reported for decades but the direct effect of major anthropogenic pressures on such declines remains unquantified. Causal relationships between pressures and bird population responses are difficult to identify as pressures interact at different spatial scales and responses vary among species. Here, we uncover direct relationships between population time-series of 170 common bird species, monitored at more than 20,000 sites in 28 European countries, over 37 y, and four widespread anthropogenic pressures: agricultural intensification, change in forest cover, urbanisation and temperature change over the last decades. We quantify the influence of each pressure on population time-series and its importance relative to other pressures, and we identify traits of most affected species. We find that agricultural intensification, in particular pesticides and fertiliser use, is the main pressure for most bird population declines, especially for invertebrate feeders. Responses to changes in forest cover, urbanisation and temperature are more species-specific. Specifically, forest cover is associated with a positive effect and growing urbanisation with a negative effect on population dynamics, while temperature change has an effect on the dynamics of a large number of bird populations, the magnitude and direction of which depend on species' thermal preferences. Our results not only confirm the pervasive and strong effects of anthropogenic pressures on common breeding birds, but quantify the relative strength of these effects stressing the urgent need for transformative changes in the way of inhabiting the world in European countries, if bird populations shall have a chance of recovering.

There have been five Mass Extinction events in the history of Earth's biodiversity, all caused by dramatic but natural phenomena. It has been claimed that the Sixth Mass Extinction may be underway, this time caused entirely by humans. Although considerable evidence indicates that there is a biodiversity crisis of increasing extinctions and plummeting abundances, some do not accept that this amounts to a Sixth Mass Extinction. Often, they use the IUCN Red List to support their stance, arguing that the rate of species loss does not differ from the background rate. However, the Red List is heavily biased: almost all birds and mammals but only a minute fraction of invertebrates have been evaluated against conservation criteria. Incorporating estimates of the true number of invertebrate extinctions leads to the conclusion that the rate vastly exceeds the background rate and that we may indeed be witnessing the start of the Sixth Mass Extinction. As an example, we focus on molluscs, the second largest phylum in numbers of known species, and, extrapolating boldly, estimate that, since around AD 1500, possibly as many as 7.5-13% (150,000-260,000) of all ~2 million known species have already gone extinct, orders of magnitude greater than the 882 (0.04%) on the Red List. We review differences in extinction rates according to realms: marine species face significant threats but, although previous mass extinctions were largely defined by marine invertebrates, there is no evidence that the marine biota has reached the same crisis as the non-marine biota. Island species have suffered far greater rates than continental ones. Plants face similar conservation biases as do invertebrates, although there are hints they may have suffered lower extinction rates. There are also those who do not deny an extinction crisis but accept it as a new trajectory of evolution, because humans are part of the natural world; some even embrace it, with a desire to manipulate it for human benefit. We take issue with these stances. Humans are the only species able to manipulate the Earth on a grand scale, and they have allowed the current crisis to happen. Despite multiple conservation initiatives at various levels, most are not species oriented (certain charismatic vertebrates excepted) and specific actions to protect every living species individually are simply unfeasible because of the tyranny of numbers. As systematic biologists, we encourage the nurturing of the innate human appreciation of biodiversity, but we reaffirm the message that the biodiversity that makes our world so fascinating, beautiful and functional is vanishing unnoticed at an unprecedented rate. In the face of a mounting crisis, scientists must adopt the practices of preventive archaeology, and collect and document as many species as possible before they disappear. All this depends on reviving the venerable study of natural history and taxonomy. Denying the crisis, simply accepting it and doing nothing, or even embracing it for the ostensible benefit of humanity, are not appropriate options and pave the way for the Earth to continue on its sad trajectory towards a Sixth Mass Extinction.

The diversity of insects is tremendous and so is the effort needed to assess it in order to better understand insect ecology as well as their role for the functioning of ecosystems. While the interest of academics and naturalists for these species has always existed, it is only recently that such interest started to reach society more generally. From insect taxonomy and distribution to the collection of large range and long scale monitoring data, the involvement of non-academics in research outputs is growing. Is this a sign of scientists not being able to meet expectations or of science getting more and more entrenched in society? We argue for the latter, highlighting the opportunities that such involvement of amateurs in insect science represent for insect conservation.

International audience; In France and Europe, farmland represents a large fraction of land cover. The study and assessment of biodiversity in farmland is therefore a major challenge. To monitor biodiversity across wide areas, citizen science programs have demonstrated their effectiveness and relevance. The involvement of citizens in data collection offers a great opportunity to deploy extensive networks for biodiversity monitoring. But citizen science programs come with two issues: large amounts of data to manage and large numbers of participants with heterogeneous skills, needs and expectations about these data. In this article, we offer a solution to these issues, concretized by an information system. The study is based on a real life citizen science program tailored for farmers. This information system provides data and tools at several levels of complexity, to fit the needs and the skills of several users, from citizens with basic IT knowledge to scientists with strong statistical background. The proposed system is designed as follows. First, a data warehouse stores the data collected by citizens. This data warehouse is modelled depending on future data analysis. Secondly, associated with the data warehouse, a standard OLAP tool enables citizens and scientists to explore data. To complete the OLAP tool, we implement and compare four feature selection methods, in order to rank explanatory factors according to their relevance. Finally, for users with extended statistical skills, we use Generalized Linear Mixed Models to explore the temporal dynamics of invertebrate diversity in farmland ecosystems. The proposed system, a combination of business intelligence tools, data mining methods and advanced statistics, offers an example of complete exploitation of data by several user profiles. The proposition is supported by a real life citizen science program, and can be used as a guideline to design information systems in the same field.

L’urbanisation engendre des pressions croissantes sur la biodiversité et participe à la déconnexion des citadins avec la nature. Entre autres se pose, dans ce contexte, la question de la biodiversité existante dans les villes. Pour apporter des éléments de réponse, une recherche a été développée dans les espaces végétalisés de l’agglomération grenobloise en 2014 et 2015. Afin de mesurer comment les types d’espaces verts et leurs modes de gestion influent sur la biodiversité, des relevés naturalistes ont été effectués dans divers espaces gérés de façon plus ou moins intensive. L’abondance et la diversité des Papilionoidea et des Araignées à toiles ont été comparées entre parcs, friches et cimetières au sein de l’agglomération grenobloise. D’autre part, uniquement pour les Papilionoidea, la comparaison a porté sur des espaces verts de Grenoble soumis à quatre modes de gestion distincts. La richesse et l’abondance sont plus élevées dans les friches périurbaines, puis urbaines, que tous les autres types de sites urbains. Les modes de gestion des parcs et cimetières influent sur l’abondance et la diversité observées et créent une gradation qualitative de la biodiversité selon l’intensité de la gestion. Les espaces végétalisés de l’agglomération constituent donc, au sein d’une matrice peu accueillante, un ensemble de sites potentiellement favorables à la biodiversité. Des modes de gestion respectueux sont efficaces pour développer la biodiversité présente.

International audience; By monitoring biodiversity through citizen science programs, volunteers help scientists gather data at unprecedented temporal and geographical scales, and increase their knowledge and awareness of the surrounding biodiversity. While scientific outcomes of such programs may in the long run improve the state of biodiversity by informing environmental policies, direct benefits to biodiversity could arise locally if such experience of nature leads to biodiversity-friendly behaviors in volunteers. However, whether engagement into nature-based CS programs promotes individual behavioral changes remains poorly known.Here, we explored whether sustained participation in a nature-based citizen science program, called the French Butterfly citizen science project, is associated with changes in individual gardening practices. Specifically, using information provided by volunteers (n = 2362, from 2006 to 2013), we quantified gardening practices that directly affect butterflies, through two different indices: provision of nectar resources, and pesticide use.We found quantitative evidence that individual gardening practices shifted with multi-year participation, towards increased provision of nectar resources and decreased use of pesticides. However, the reduction in pesticide use was weakened if the backyard was used to grow fruits or vegetables. Other variables such as the size of the backyard affected gardening practices.This study reveals that participation in a nature-based citizen science program can prompt biodiversity-friendly behaviors, and highlights citizen science not only as a way to collect ecologically sound data but also as a direct conservation tool. Yet, future interdisciplinary research remains critical to overcome factors limiting firm adoption of pro-biodiversity behaviors.

International audience; Biological recording at broad temporal and spatial scales produces large volumes of species occurrence data. Multi-source datasets, which include opportunistic records, are unstructured and contain bias, mainly due to uneven and unknown observation effort, but they also provide meaningful information about species phenology. Butterflies are well known and well represented in citizen-science programs and national inventories, which makes them an interesting case for phenological studies. This work aims to find a simple, flexible, fast-rendering phenology index, which has to prove reliable when compared to standard knowledge. Six indices (two non-corrected and four corrected for observation effort) were built and implemented on butterfly records. They were analysed against blind expert opinion and a set of monitoring data. Surprisingly, all indices produced mostly realistic phenological patterns and non-corrected indices were as good as corrected ones. The number of species records divided by the number of records of all species of the group collected during the same period is the only index that should be avoided, because of an over-correction of recording intensity. Additional work is needed, in particular to refine the analysis by testing the sensitivity of the index to the amount of data, as well as by employing statistical models that are also useful for exploring trends and seasonal shifts.

Despite growing concern over consequences of global changes, we still know little about potential interactive effects of anthropogenic perturbations and diversity loss on the stability of local communities, especially for taxa other than plants. Here we analyse the relationships among landscape composition, biodiversity and community stability looking at time series of three types of communities, i.e., bats, birds and butterflies, monitored over the years by citizen science programs in France. We show that urban and intensive agricultural landscapes as well as diversity loss destabilize these communities but in different ways: while diversity loss translates into greater population synchrony, urban and intensive agricultural landscapes mainly decrease mean population stability. In addition to highlight the stabilizing effects of diversity on ecologically important but overlooked taxa, our results further reveal new pathways linking anthropogenic activities to diversity and stability., Environmental change and species diversity could jointly affect the stability of animal communities. Here the authors use citizen science data on bats, birds, and butterflies along urbanization and agricultural intensification gradients in France to show that both environmental change and diversity loss destabilise communities, but in different ways.

Pupoidopsis hawaiensis Pilsbry & C.M. Cooke, 1921, and its monospecific genus, is the only representative of Pupillidae in tropical Pacific Islands. Although most of native species from that region are single island endemics, P. hawaiensis has been recorded from Hawaii to the Tuamotus. However, it has not been recorded alive since 1965. Here we report the only modern living population of that species from a single site in Anaa (Tuamotu archipelago). A single COI haplotype and a single 28S allele support the hypothesis of self-fertilization. The species should be listed as Critically Endangered, and included in the list of protected species of French Polynesia. An Action Plan for its conservation should be undertaken, with protection status given to its last known stronghold in Anaa.

International audience; Context Understanding the factors contributing to maintaining biodiversity is crucial to mitigate the impact of anthropogenic disturbances. Representing large proportions of green area in highly modified landscapes, residential gardens are often seen as local habitats that can contribute to larger networks of suitable environments at the landscape scale. Objectives We investigated the impact of the landscape context on butterfly communities observed in residential gardens, taking into account garden characteristics, land-use types and presence of linear features in the surrounding landscape. We examined how species traits affected butterflies’ response to landscape context and habitat quality. Methods We performed a cross-scale study, based on citizen science data documenting butterfly species composition and abundance in 920 gardens across France. We examined the effect of garden quality, the area of different land-use types and the length of linear elements measured at three scales within the surrounding landscape. Species were grouped according to their habitat preference and mobility. Results Urbanization negatively affected total species richness and the abundance of butterfly in each group. This was related to declining habitat quality and reduced area of suitable habitat in the surrounding landscape. The magnitude of this effect, however, was negatively correlated with mobility, a trait related to habitat preference. The spatial scale at which landscape context best explained variation in butterfly abundance changed with species’ habitat preference. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of preserving high quality habitats in altered landscapes and considering species’ mobility and habitat preference when assessing the impact of landscapes on butterfly communities.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List includes 832 species listed as extinct since 1600, a minuscule fraction of total biodiversity. This extinction rate is of the same order of magnitude as the background rate and has been used to downplay the biodiversity crisis. Invertebrates comprise 99% of biodiversity, yet the status of a negligible number has been assessed. We assessed extinction in the Hawaiian land snail family Amastridae (325 species, IUCN lists 33 as extinct). We did not use the stringent IUCN criteria, by which most invertebrates would be considered data deficient, but a more realistic approach comparing historical collections with modern surveys and expert knowledge. Of the 325 Amastridae species, 43 were originally described as fossil or subfossil and were assumed to be extinct. Of the remaining 282, we evaluated 88 as extinct and 15 as extant and determined that 179 species had insufficient evidence of extinction (though most are probably extinct). Results of statistical assessment of extinction probabilities were consistent with our expert evaluations of levels of extinction. Modeling various extinction scenarios yielded extinction rates of 0.4-14.0% of the amastrid fauna per decade. The true rate of amastrid extinction has not been constant; generally, it has increased over time. We estimated a realistic average extinction rate as approximately 5%/decade since the first half of the nineteenth century. In general, oceanic island biotas are especially susceptible to extinction and global rate generalizations do not reflect this. Our approach could be used for other invertebrates, especially those with restricted ranges (e.g., islands), and such an approach may be the only way to evaluate invertebrates rapidly enough to keep up with ongoing extinction.

Private gardens are an important food source and refuge for animals in urban areas because they represent a large part of the green space. It has been shown that garden management regime (water use, floral composition) may impact the species they shelter. However, due to access restrictions, lack of regulations and the difficulty of data collection on private property, the impact of management practices and in particular pesticide use has seldom been assessed in private gardens. Using data collected in the framework of a nationwide participatory monitoring scheme in France, we assess here, for the first time, the effect of private garden management on two important groups of flower-visiting insects, i.e. butterflies and bumblebees, at a large scale. We show that the correlation between butterfly and bumblebee abundance and use of insecticides and herbicides is negative, whereas the use of Bordeaux mixture (fungicide approved for organic use), fungicides and anti-slugs is positively correlated with butterfly and bumblebee abundance. We hypothesize that herbicides have an indirect negative impact on insects by limiting the amount of available resources, and that the Bordeaux mixture, fungicides and slug repellants have an indirect positive impact on these insects by fostering healthier plants, probably offering higher level of resources to pollinators. Moreover, we show that the impact of pesticides varies according to the landscape, the negative effect of insecticides being more important in highly urbanized areas. Overall, our results show that gardener practices can have a positive impact on flower-visiting insects, even in a highly anthropized, urban landscape.

International audience; We investigated the interacting impacts of urban landscape and gardening practices on the species richness and total abundance of communities of common butterfly communities across France, using data from a nationwide monitoring scheme. We show that urbanization has a strong negative impact on butterfly richness and abundance but that at a local scale, such impact could be mitigated by gardening practices favoring nectar offer. We found few interactions among these landscape and local scale effects, indicating that butterfly-friendly gardening practices are efficient whatever the level of surrounding urbanization. We further highlight that species being the most negatively affected by urbanization are the most sensitive to gardening practices: Garden management can thus partly counterbalance the deleterious effect of urbanization for butterfly communities. This holds a strong message for park managers and private gardeners, as gardens may act as potential refuge for butterflies when the overall landscape is largely unsuitable.

The field of biodiversity conservation has recently been criticized as relying on a fixist view of the living world in which existing species constitute at the same time targets of conservation efforts and static states of reference, which is in apparent disagreement with evolutionary dynamics. We reviewed the prominent role of species as conservation units and the common benchmark approach to conservation that aims to use past biodiversity as a reference to conserve current biodiversity. We found that the species approach is justified by the discrepancy between the time scales of macroevolution and human influence and that biodiversity benchmarks are based on reference processes rather than fixed reference states. Overall, we argue that the ethical and theoretical frameworks underlying conservation research are based on macroevolutionary processes, such as extinction dynamics. Current species, phylogenetic, community, and functional conservation approaches constitute short-term responses to short-term human effects on these reference processes, and these approaches are consistent with evolutionary principles.

We study whether butterfly diet predicts butterfly distribution along an urban gradient. Data come from a large scale participatory scheme involving the general public reporting butterfly abundance in their gardens (more than 6000 gardens), completed by a special survey on the relationship between butterfly species and flower species based on amateur pictures (more than 3500 pictures). Many studies show that urbanization promotes the loss of native plant species and their replacement by non-native species, so in this context we addressed the question of butterfly diet impacts provided by exotic and native plants in urban landscapes and we quantified diet diversity to identify specialist and generalist butterflies. Diet specialists had a longer proboscis and both specialization and proboscis length were positively correlated to preferences for exotic flowers. Nevertheless, diet specialist butterflies tended to avoid urban areas more strongly than diet generalists, while preference for exotic flowers was surprisingly not correlated to preferences for urban life in butterflies. All together this suggests that diet preferences do not play a strong part in determining butterfly distribution along urban gradients but also that diet specialization must be correlated to other life history traits such as dispersal ability or flexibility in habitat selection. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

How urbanization affects the distribution patterns of butterflies is still poorly known. Here we investigated the structure and composition of butterfly assemblages along an urbanization gradient within the most urbanized and densely populated region in France (Ile-de-France). Using a method issued from artificial neural networks, i.e. self-organizing maps (SOMs), we showed the existence of four typical assemblages ranging from urban-tolerant species to urban-avoider species. We identified indicator species of these assemblages: the peacock butterfly (Inachis io) in urbanized areas, the swallowtail (Papilio machaon) in sites with intermediate human pressure, or the meadow brown (Maniola jurtina), the small heath (Coenonympha pamphilus) and the gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus) in meadows around Paris. A discriminant analysis showed that the four assemblages were mainly segregated by landscape elements, both by structural variables (habitat type, proportion of rural areas and artificial urban areas, patch surface) and functional variables (distance to the nearest wood, artificial area and park). Artificial neural networks and SOMs coupled stepwise discriminant analysis proved to be promising tools that should be added to the toolbox of community and spatial ecologists.

During expeditions to Santo and the Torres islands belonging to the Vanuatu archipelago in 2006 and 2007, ten new species of tateid gastropods confined to springs, the upper most, slowly flowing regions of streams or the groundwater had been discovered. These species were now described based on shell morphology and anatomy. In accordance with geography, these characters placed the species from Vanuatu between those from New Caledonia and Fiji, suggesting a stepping stone-like dispersal across the Pacific with an origin in New Zealand and the far end on the Austral islands. We also assessed the threat status of the new species according to the IUCN Red List criteria and concluded that they should be amended by explicit incorporation of the scale of potential human impact or stochastic natural events relative to the size of the habitat of organisms.

We present the assessment of the land snail diversity in approximately 50 km2 of savanna/forest mosaic in the northern part of Lope National Park, Gabon, taking into account habitat variation and seasons. A total of 3,745 specimens were collected, yielding 74 species from 12 families, with Subulinidae being the most speciose family. Most specimens were not identified but assigned to Recognizable Taxonomic Units. Extrapolations suggest that the true diversity of the area lies between 79 and 132 species. Overall snail abundance was low, and most species were minute. Spatial and habitat heterogeneity was high, with 33.8% of the species collected from one station only. Rare species made up a considerable proportion of the fauna, with 23.0% of the species represented by one specimen only. The most species-rich habitats were mature forest, Marantaceae forest, rocky forest, and forest fragments isolated in savanna, in that order. Savanna was the least species-rich habitat, and no species were confined to this ha...

In order to assess the potential for molluscan conservation of a protected area considered representative of regional megafauna, we sampled molluscs inside and outside Lope National Park in Gabon. In the northern part of Lope National Park, 116 stations were surveyed and 71 species collected. Outside the park, 37 stations yielded 96 species, including 71 in Lastoursville, a small limestone area where molluscs are significantly more abundant than in other collecting sites. Lastoursville is among the richest sites known for molluscs in Africa. Overlap between sampling areas was limited, with 20.0% of the species found only in Lope National Park, and 40.8% of the species found only outside. This suggests that Lope National Park does not protect the whole molluscan diversity of central Gabon. Given the high levels of allopatric diversity of tropical land snails, conservation strategies cannot be the same for snails and for wide-ranging vertebrates. Protecting small areas with a high abundance and diversity of molluscs would be less expensive and as efficient for molluscan conservation as protecting large tracts of rainforest. Despite limited general knowledge of central African molluscs, robust estimates of site-specific diversity can be produced. Limestone areas harbour a remarkable biodiversity: sites such as Lastoursville would be ideal candidates for small protected areas dedicated to the conservation of land snails, and would complement the role of large protected areas.

Since the 1980s, many have suggested we are in the midst of a massive extinction crisis, yet only 799 (0.04%) of the 1.9 million known recent species are recorded as extinct, questioning the reality of the crisis. This low figure is due to the fact that the status of very few invertebrates, which represent the bulk of biodiversity, have been evaluated. Here we show, based on extrapolation from a random sample of land snail species via two independent approaches, that we may already have lost 7% (130,000 extinctions) of the species on Earth. However, this loss is masked by the emphasis on terrestrial vertebrates, the target of most conservation actions. Projections of species extinction rates are controversial because invertebrates are essentially excluded from these scenarios. Invertebrates can and must be assessed if we are to obtain a more realistic picture of the sixth extinction crisis.

Lies aux conditions generales de travail, les risques professionnels font peser sur les salaries la menace d’une alteration de leur sante qui peut se traduire par une maladie ou un accident. La premiere edition de l’atlas des risques professionnels en Auvergne, realisee, en 2014, dans le cadre du Plan regional sante au travail 2010–2014, repond a la volonte de disposer en Auvergne d’un outil d’information et de communication sur l’ensemble des risques professionnels utile a l’action. L’elaboration de l’atlas des risques professionnels a pour objectif d’ameliorer la connaissance des risques professionnels en Auvergne par le croisement des donnees des differents partenaires selon les secteurs professionnels, les territoires (region, departements, zones d’emploi)… Il permettra ainsi aux differents intervenants dans le domaine de la prevention des risques professionnels (services de sante au travail, entreprises, syndicats professionnels et salaries, Carsat, MSA, Direccte…) de beneficier d’un outil commun de reference sur la region pour la mise en œuvre d’un plan de prevention et de veille visant a ameliorer les conditions de travail et a limiter les effets sur la sante. En 2012 en Auvergne, 13 169 accidents du travail avec arret ayant fait l’objet d’une 1re indemnisation par le regime general de la securite sociale, ainsi que 15 deces, ont ete recenses. L’Auvergne represente 1,8 % des salaries de France et 2,0 % des accidents du travail. Par ailleurs, concernant le regime agricole, 802 accidents du travail avec arret ont ete indemnises, soit 2,1 % des accidents en France metropolitaine. Les maladies professionnelles ayant donne lieu a une premiere indemnisation en 2012 en Auvergne representent 1,7 % des maladies professionnelles indemnisees en France par le regime general de la securite sociale et sont en grande majorite des affections peri-articulaires. En 2012, 9 maladies professionnelles ont entraine le deces du salarie. Ces deces sont majoritairement lies a l’amiante. Les risques professionnels sont egalement recenses par les enquetes de veille sanitaire (MCP, RNV3P, EVREST, inaptitudes…). L’enjeu de cet atlas est de disposer d’informations fiables et assez fines, partagees par l’ensemble des contributeurs, pour aider a la prise de decisions sur le terrain. Plus largement, il permet, par sa vocation d’information de sensibiliser aux enjeux lies a la prevention des risques professionnels les employeurs, les institutions representatives du personnel (IRP) ainsi que le grand public.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List includes 832 species listed as extinct since 1600, a minuscule fraction of total biodiversity. This extinction rate is of the same order of magnitude as the background rate and has been used to downplay the biodiversity crisis. Invertebrates comprise 99% of biodiversity, yet the status of a negligible number has been assessed. We assessed extinction in the Hawaiian land snail family Amastridae (325 species, IUCN lists 33 as extinct). We did not use the stringent IUCN criteria, by which most invertebrates would be considered data deficient, but a more realistic approach comparing historical collections with modern surveys and expert knowledge. Of the 325 Amastridae species, 43 were originally described as fossil or subfossil and were assumed to be extinct. Of the remaining 282, we evaluated 88 as extinct and 15 as extant and determined that 179 species had insufficient evidence of extinction (though most are probably extinct). Results of statistical assessment of extinction probabilities were consistent with our expert evaluations of levels of extinction. Modeling various extinction scenarios yielded extinction rates of 0.4-14.0% of the amastrid fauna per decade. The true rate of amastrid extinction has not been constant; generally, it has increased over time. We estimated a realistic average extinction rate as approximately 5%/decade since the first half of the nineteenth century. In general, oceanic island biotas are especially susceptible to extinction and global rate generalizations do not reflect this. Our approach could be used for other invertebrates, especially those with restricted ranges (e.g., islands), and such an approach may be the only way to evaluate invertebrates rapidly enough to keep up with ongoing extinction.

The family Endodontidae Pilsbry, 1895 comprised one of the most diverse groups of indigenous land snails of Pacific Islands. However, due to anthropogenic degradation of their habitats and predation by or competition with introduced species, most members of the family are now extinct or severely endangered. Based on limited and sporadic collections, the endodontid fauna of the raised coral island of Makatea in the western Tuamotu Archipelago was known to consist of four valid species, Mautodontha (Mautodontha) daedalea (Gould, 1846), Kleokyphus callimus Solem, 1976, K. hypsus Solem, 1976 and Pseudolibera lillianae Solem, 1976, the last three of which were endemic. To these, we add 18 new species based on a reappraisal of museum collections and analysis of abundant new material collected in 2005: M. (M.) domaneschii, M. (M.) virginiae, M. (M.) harperae, M. (Garrettoconcha) aurora, M. (G.) occidentalis, M. (G.) temaoensis, M. (G.) makateaensis, M. (G.) passosi, M. (G.) spelunca, K. cowiei, P. solemi, P. matthieui, P. cookei, P. aubertdelaruei, P. extincta, P. paraminderae, P. elieporoii, and P. parva. The recently collected material also revealed new information on the morphology, intraspecific variation and distribution of the four previously known species, which are here revised and re-described. With 22 recognized taxa, the radiation of endodontids in Makatea is second in species richness only to that of Rapa Iti in the Austral Islands, from where 24 endodontids have been described. Despite intensive field work in Makatea in 2005, only M. (M.) daedalea was found alive. All other Makatean endodontids were represented solely by empty and worn shells and are probably extinct.

In 1957, the first nuclear power station in France was built in the heart of the Bourgueil region. It was therefore into a rural way of life steeped in history that radical economic, demographic, social and political changes were to operate. In the search for integration by the incoming population and the maintenance of a strong rural identity by the native population, the homologation will progress in a series of new battles between a picturesque countrysidfe and the encroaching urbanisation., En 1957, s'installe au cœur du Bourgueillois, le premier site nucléaire en France. C'est dans un espace rural chargé d'histoire que vont s'opérer des changements radicaux au niveau économique, démographique, social et politique. Dans la recherche d'une intégration par les populations exogènes et la sauvegarde d'une identité rurale forte de la population autochtone, le mixage va progresser vers la mise en place de nouvelles territorialités duales entre un pittoresque rural et des pratiques proches de la citadinité., Fontaine Benoît, Jean Yves. Mutations et pratiques d'un nouveau territoire : les effets de l'implantation du site nucléaire de Chinon sur la commune de Bourgueil. De la complexification des pratiques citadinistes sur un substrat rural. In: Norois, n°186, 2000-2. pp. 219-234.

Mandrills have long been known to form large aggregations in the wild, but it has proved difficult to obtain detailed information on the socioecology of these groups. An unusually large (>600) horde of mandrills was followed for ten days during the 1995 dry season in Central Gabon, and data were collected on group composition and ecology while the mandrills were in an area of forest-savanna mosaic habitat in the north of the Lope Reserve. Three separate counts of most of the group showed that fully coloured "fatted" adult males were present throughout the horde at a mean ratio to other individuals of 1:21. Paler "non-fatted" adult and sub-adult males were also distributed throughout. Mandrill diet over the ten days consisted mainly of insects, seeds from forest trees, and leaves or stems of understory herbaceous plants. Feeding was extremely selective, with most food items consumed in a much higher proportion than would be predicted from their relative availability. Ranging data also showed that the mandrills foraged preferentially in certain forest types within the forest-savanna mosaic, namely in Marantaceae and Rocky Forest. It is suggested that one reason why mandrills pass through gallery forests and forest-savanna mosaic in the dry season in the Lope Reserve is because they find fruit there from preferred species, which are no longer fruiting in the main forest block, thus allowing them to maintain the fruit component of their diet at a time of fruit shortage. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The number of described species on the planet is about 1.9 million, with ca. 17,000 new species described annually, mostly from the tropics. However, taxonomy is usually described as a science in crisis, lacking manpower and funding, a politically acknowledged problem known as the Taxonomic Impediment. Using data from the Fauna Europaea database and the Zoological Record, we show that contrary to general belief, developed and heavily-studied parts of the world are important reservoirs of unknown species. In Europe, new species of multicellular terrestrial and freshwater animals are being discovered and named at an unprecedented rate: since the 1950s, more than 770 new species are on average described each year from Europe, which add to the 125,000 terrestrial and freshwater multicellular species already known in this region. There is no sign of having reached a plateau that would allow for the assessment of the magnitude of European biodiversity. More remarkably, over 60% of these new species are described by non-professional taxonomists. Amateurs are recognized as an essential part of the workforce in ecology and astronomy, but the magnitude of non-professional taxonomist contributions to alpha-taxonomy has not been fully realized until now. Our results stress the importance of developing a system that better supports and guides this formidable workforce, as we seek to overcome the Taxonomic Impediment and speed up the process of describing the planetary biodiversity before it is too late. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036881

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), states have to provide indicators in order to assess the performance of their initiatives for halting the loss of biodiversity. Sixteen headline indicators have been identified for monitoring the CBD targets. Of these indicators only one, "Trends in the abundance and distribution of selected species," is a direct headline indicator of "non-exploited" biodiversity. In France, the implementation of this indicator is completely dependent on data collected by volunteers. Since this investment of volunteer time is equivalent to savings in administrative costs, we attempt in this paper to assign it a monetary value. This enables us to estimate how much the French administration saves thanks to volunteer efforts and how much public funding would have to be invested if volunteers were no longer willing to participate in these biodiversity monitoring schemes. We estimate this amount to be between 678,523 and 4,415,251 euros per year, depending on the scenario selected. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

International audience; Four species of land snails belonging to the family Endodontidae (Mollusca, Pulmonata) are described, all of them are endemic to Rurutu Island (Austral Islands, French Polynesia): Australdonta collicella n. sp, A. magnasulcatissima n. sp., A. microspiralis n. sp. and A. sulcata n. sp. Th e number of species of Endodontidae known from Rurutu is increased from seven to 11. All of them are considered extinct

Mollusks are the group most affected by extinction according to the 2007 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, despite the group having not been evaluated since 2000 and the quality of information for invertebrates being far lower than for vertebrates. Altogether 302 species and 11 subspecies are listed as extinct on the IUCN Red List. We reevaluated mollusk species listed as extinct through bibliographic research and consultation with experts. We found that the number of known mollusk extinctions is almost double that of the IUCN Red List. Marine habitats seem to have experienced few extinctions, which suggests that marine species may be less extinction prone than terrestrial and freshwater species. Some geographic and ecologic biases appeared. For instance, the majority of extinctions in freshwater occurred in the United States. More than 70% of known mollusk extinctions took place on oceanic islands, and a one-third of these extinctions may have been caused precipitously by introduction of the predatory snail Euglandina rosea. We suggest that assessment of the conservation status of invertebrate species is neglected in the IUCN Red List and not managed in the same way as for vertebrate species.

19 páginas, 8 figuras, 3 tables et al.., The European Union has adopted the ambitious target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Several indicators have been proposed to assess progress towards the 2010 target, two of them addressing directly the issue of species decline. In Europe, the Fauna Europaea database gives an insight into the patterns of distribution of a total dataset of 130,000 terrestrial and freshwater species without taxonomic bias, and provide a unique opportunity to assess the feasibility of the 2010 target. It shows that the vast majority of European species are rare, in the sense that they have a restricted range. Considering this, the paper discusses whether the 2010 target indicators really cover the species most at risk of extinction. The analysis of a list of 62 globally extinct European taxa shows that most contemporary extinctions have affected narrow-range taxa or taxa with strict ecological requirements. Indeed, most European species listed as threatened in the IUCN Red List are narrow-range species. Conversely, there are as many wide-range species as narrow-range endemics in the list of protected species in Europe (Bird and Habitat Directives). The subset of biodiversity captured by the 2010 target indicators should be representative of the whole., We thank Melina Verbeek, Fedor Steeman and Claire Basire (Fauna Europaea Project Bureau), and Anastasios Legakis, Trudy Brannan and Alfonso Navas Sanchez (Fauna Europaea Steering Committee) for their assistance in the implementation of the Fauna Europaea project. Grateful acknowledgements to Gregoire Lois (MNHN) who helped with the listing of protected species, and to Maurice Kottelat who provided invaluable data on extinct and threatened fish.

Summary A large part of biodiversity is still unknown, and it is estimated that, at the current pace, it will take several centuries to describe all species living on Earth. In the context of the ongoing ‘sixth extinction', accelerating the completion of the inventory of living biota is an issue that reaches far beyond the taxonomic community. However, the factors that influence the accretion of known species remain poorly understood. Here, we study how long it takes from the first collection of a specimen of a new species to its formal description and naming in the scientific literature [1,2] — a period we refer to as a species' ‘shelf life'. Based on a random set of species described in 2007 across all kingdoms of life, we determine that the average shelf life between discovery and description is 21 years. The length of the shelf life is impacted by biological, social and geopolitical biases.

The family Endodontidae Pilsbry, 1895 comprised one of the most diverse groups of indigenous land snails of Pacific Islands. However, due to anthropogenic degradation of their habitats and predation by or competition with introduced species, most members of the family are now extinct or severely endangered. Based on limited and sporadic collections, the endodontid fauna of the raised coral island of Makatea in the western Tuamotu Archipelago was known to consist of four valid species, Mautodontha (Mautodontha) daedalea (Gould, 1846), Kleokyphus callimus Solem, 1976, K. hypsus Solem, 1976 and Pseudolibera lillianae Solem, 1976, the last three of which were endemic. To these, we add 18 new species based on a reappraisal of museum collections and analysis of abundant new material collected in 2005: M. (M.) domaneschii, M. (M.) virginiae, M. (M.) harperae, M. (Garrettoconcha) aurora, M. (G.) occidentalis, M. (G.) temaoensis, M. (G.) makateaensis, M. (G.) passosi, M. (G.) spelunca, K. cowiei, P. solemi, P. matthieui, P. cookei, P. aubertdelaruei, P. extincta, P. paraminderae, P. elieporoii, and P. parva. The recently collected material also revealed new information on the morphology, intraspecific variation and distribution of the four previously known species, which are here revised and re-described. With 22 recognized taxa, the radiation of endodontids in Makatea is second in species richness only to that of Rapa Iti in the Austral Islands, from where 24 endodontids have been described. Despite intensive field work in Makatea in 2005, only M. (M.) daedalea was found alive. All other Makatean endodontids were represented solely by empty and worn shells and are probably extinct.

Supplementary feeding of wild birds in private backyards is a globally widespread pastime. It provides a wonderful opportunity for research and survey of winter bird populations at spatial and temporal large-scales by involving householders in citizen science programs. We used data from the French national garden birdwatch scheme, a citizen science program operated by the Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux, to study winter bird abundance variations in gardens which provided food supply, at a large spatial scale. This thesis aims to understand which factors influence the visit of gardens by birds during winter, a season traditionally pointed out to have the greatest impact on passerine survival. We highlighted that gardens with feeders located close to intensively cultivated farmland attract birds as a response of the countryside natural resource scarcity leads by intensive agricultural practices. This relationship being stronger for farmland seedeater species. Variations in the use of garden by birds also fluctuate between years and with weather conditions, but the variations were not similar among species. This being consistent with the expected influence of their ecological and biological differences. This garden bird survey in winter also reflected the global negative trends observed for some granivorous species in France or Europe during the breeding season, confirming that the use of garden bird feeders by wild bird species offers a new tool to survey the global population trends. We also suspect that variation in abundance could mirror spatial differences, and maybe mirror human activities impacts such as poaching, but this part requires further investigation. Finally, our work could be beneficial for maintaining declining seedeater species, by advising to supply birds with winter food in garden located in intensive agricultural landscape, while continuing to engage the public with nature.; Nourrir les oiseaux dans les jardins privés est une activité très répandue en Occident. Elle fournit une remarquable opportunité de recherche et de suivi des populations d’oiseaux en hiver sur de larges échelles spatio-temporelles, en impliquant les citoyens dans des programmes de science participative. Nous avons utilisé le programme Oiseaux des Jardins, un programme de science participative coordonné par la Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux, pour étudier sur une grande échelle spatiale les variations d’abondance d’oiseaux en hiver dans les jardins qui fournissent de la nourriture. Le but de cette thèse est de comprendre quels paramètres peuvent expliquer les visites des oiseaux dans les jardins en hiver, saison traditionnellement considérée comme la plus décisive pour leur survie. Nous montrons que les jardins distribuant de la nourriture, proches de milieux agricoles intensifs, attirent les oiseaux en réponse à une raréfaction des ressources alimentaires naturelles, causée par l’intensité des pratiques agricoles. Cette relation est encore plus forte pour les espèces spécialistes des milieux agricoles. Les variations d’abondance d’oiseaux dans les jardins fluctuent selon les années et les conditions météorologiques, sans présenter de pattern de réponse commun entre espèces, en raison de leur biologie et écologie différentes. Ce suivi des oiseaux en hiver reflète également la tendance négative de population de plusieurs granivores, connue en France ou en Europe en période de reproduction, confirmant que l’utilisation des jardins avec mangeoires est un bon moyen de suivre les tendances des populations d’oiseaux. Nous suspectons que les variations d’abondances à l’échelle spatiale peuvent également refléter l’effet d’activités humaines, telles que le braconnage des passereaux, mais un travail supplémentaire est nécessaire pour confirmer cette hypothèse. Les résultats de cette thèse peuvent également aider au maintien des espèces granivores en déclin, en apportant des conseils adaptés à la distribution de nourriture de substitution pour les oiseaux dans les paysages agricoles intensifs, tout en continuant à engager le public dans le suivi et la protection de la nature.