Knowledge of the latitudinal patterns in biotic interactions, and especially in herbivory, is crucial for understanding the mechanisms that govern ecosystem functioning and for predicting their responses to climate change. We used sap-feeding insects as a model group to test the hypotheses that the strength of plant-herbivore interactions in boreal forests decreases with latitude and that this latitudinal pattern is driven primarily by midsummer temperatures. We used a replicated sampling design and quantitatively collected and identified all sap-feeding insects from four species of forest trees along five latitudinal gradients (750-1300 km in length, ten sites in each gradient) in northern Europe (59 to 70°N and 10 to 60°E) during 2008-2011. Similar decreases in diversity of sap-feeding insects with latitude were observed in all gradients during all study years. The sap-feeder load (i.e. insect biomass per unit of foliar biomass) decreased with latitude in typical summers, but increased in an exceptionally hot summer and was independent of latitude during a warm summer. Analysis of combined data from all sites and years revealed dome-shaped relationships between the loads of sap-feeders and midsummer temperatures, peaking at 17 °C in Picea abies, at 19.5 °C in Pinus sylvestris and Betula pubescens and at 22 °C in B. pendula. From these relationships, we predict that the losses of forest trees to sap-feeders will increase by 0-45% of the current level in southern boreal forests and by 65-210% in subarctic forests with a 1 °C increase in summer temperatures. The observed relationships between temperatures and the loads of sap-feeders differ between the coniferous and deciduous tree species. We conclude that climate warming will not only increase plant losses to sap-feeding insects, especially in subarctic forests, but can also alter plant-plant interactions, thereby affecting both the productivity and the structure of future forest ecosystems.

Parallel trends of chromosomal evolution in Aphidococca are discussed, based on the catalogue of chromosomal numbers and genetic systems of scale insects by Gavrilov (2007) and the new catalogue for aphids provided in the present paper. To date chromosome numbers have been reported for 482 species of scale insects and for 1039 species of aphids, thus respectively comprising about 6% and 24% of the total number of species. Such characters as low modal numbers of chromosomes, heterochromatinization of part of chromosomes, production of only two sperm instead of four from each primary spermatocyte, physiological sex determination, "larval" meiosis, wide distribution of parthenogenesis and chromosomal races are considered as a result of homologous parallel changes of the initial genotype of Aphidococca ancestors. From a cytogenetic point of view, these characters separate Aphidococca from all other groups of Paraneoptera insects and in this sense can be considered as additional taxonomic characters. In contrast to available paleontological data the authors doubt that Coccinea with their very diverse (and partly primitive) genetic systems may have originated later then Aphidinea with their very specialised and unified genetic system.

This paper compiles and summarizes a great deal of extremely pertinent Russian language literature (most of which has remained little known and inaccessible to western scientists) covering virtually all of the basic early reports of the Russian wheat aphid, Diuruphis noxia (Kurdjumov, 1913), and traces the evolution of this insect into one of the world's most damaging pests of small grains. A longstanding error in the authorship of D. noxia is corrected. An original taxonomic key to the apterous vivipara of species of Diuraphis is proposed. Various old-world parasitoid, predator, and native host plant associations with Diuraphis species are described from the literature, and a number of potentially useful aphidophagous insects are identified and collection sites recommended.

Investigation of Eriosomatidae in Belarus started in the 1900s. However, a regional checklist of Eriosomatidae aphids was not published till now. Based on material preserved in the collections of Belarusian State University and the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and data scattered across publications we have compiled the first comprehensive list of Eriosomatidae recorded from Belarus and briefly analysed it from the geographical and ecological points of views. The list includes 12 genera and 27 species. Pemphigus passeki Börner, 1952 has been recorded from Belarus for the first time. The registered diversity is less abundant than in the adjacent Poland. In the accordance with the global pattern of aphids host plant connections, a single species permanently inhabit woody plants (monoecious species), the other ones are dioecious and migrate from woody plants to woody (eight species) or herbaceous (12 species) plants. Four species is anholocyclic.

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The article contains new data on the Aphidoidea of Wrangel Island collected in 2015. Previously, at least four species were known. Two of them, Aphis polaris Stekolshchikov et Khruleva, 2014 and Metopolophium sabihae Prior, 1976, were regularly observed on the island in the 1980s and 1990s. Pterocomma groenlandicum Hille Ris Lambers, 1952 and Myzus (Nectarosiphon) polaris Hille Ris Lambers, 1952, were first collected in 2006. In 2015 three more species were found: Brachycaudus (Mordvilkomemor) rumexicolens (Patch, 1917), Cavariella aegopodii (Scopoli, 1763), and Pemphigus saliciradicis (Börner, 1950). This last species represents a first record for the territory of Russia whereas C. aegopodii had not previously been collected in tundra landscapes. In 2015, a total of seven aphid species were collected. For one of the four previously noted species, M. sabihae, a sharp increase in its abundance is recorded. We propose that the increase in aphid species diversity is due to climate warming in the Russian High Arctic. A detailed redescription of the oviparous female of P. groenlandicum is also provided.

An updated aphid (Hemiptera, Aphidomorpha) check-list of Murmansk province (European Russia) is presented, it includes 162 species. Chaitophorus nigricantis Pintera, 1987, Schizaphis nigerrima (Hille Ris Lambers), Hyperomyzus (Neonasonovia) zirnitsi Hille Ris Lambers, Nasonovia (Kakimia) vannesii Stenseth, Plocamaphis flocculosa goernitzi Börner and Schizaphis graminum gigjai Stroyan are recorded for the first time from Russia. Both apterous and alate males of Chaitophorus nigricantis nigricantis Pintera are described. Two new aphid species are described: Aphis khrulevi sp. nov. from fundatrices and  apterous viviparous females, living on Veronica longifolia and Dysaphis karyakini sp. nov. from apterous and alate viviparous females, oviparous females and males, living on Cenolophium denudatum. Comments about the distribution and biology of aphids in this Northern part of Europe, and on the completeness of the list are given.