Given the global continuous rise, artificial light at night is often considered a driving force behind moth population declines. Although negative effects on individuals have been shown, there is no evidence for effects on population sizes to date. Therefore, we compared population trends of Dutch macromoth fauna over the period 1985-2015 between moth species that differ in phototaxis and adult circadian rhythm. We found that moth species that show positive phototaxis or are nocturnally active have stronger negative population trends than species that are not attracted to light or are diurnal species. Our results indicate that artificial light at night is an important factor in explaining declines in moth populations in regions with high artificial night sky brightness. Our study supports efforts to reduce the impacts of artificial light at night by promoting lamps that do not attract insects and reduce overall levels of illumination in rural areas to reverse declines of moth populations.

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In this first evaluation, the COMFORT scale appears to be a valid and reliable measurement tool to assess the stress of ventilated prematurely born babies.

The widely used Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) monthly temperature dataset is available in two formats—non-homogenized and homogenized. Since 2011, this homogenized dataset has been updated almost daily by applying the “Pairwise Homogenization Algorithm” (PHA) to the non-homogenized datasets. Previous studies found that the PHA can perform well at correcting synthetic time series when certain artificial biases are introduced. However, its performance with real world data has been less well studied. Therefore, the homogenized GHCN datasets (Version 3 and 4) were downloaded almost daily over a 10-year period (2011-2021) yielding 3689 different updates to the datasets. The different breakpoints identified were analyzed for a set of stations from 24 European countries for which station history metadata were available. A remarkable inconsistency in the identified breakpoints (and hence adjustments applied) was revealed. Of the adjustments applied for GHCN Version 4, 64% (61% for Version 3) were identified on less than 25% of runs, while only 16% of the adjustments (21% for Version 3) were identified consistently for more than 75% of the runs. The consistency of PHA adjustments improved when the breakpoints corresponded to documented station history metadata events. However, only 19% of the breakpoints (18% for Version 3) were associated with a documented event within 1 year, and 67% (69% for Version 3) were not associated with any documented event. Therefore, while the PHA remains a useful tool in the community’s homogenization toolbox, many of the PHA adjustments applied to the homogenized GHCN dataset may have been spurious. Using station metadata to assess the reliability of PHA adjustments might potentially help to identify some of these spurious adjustments.

Butterflies of the genus Maniola are known for their large morphological variation, at the inter- as well as intraspecific level. Given the overlap in wing-patterns, habitat selection, and geographic distribution of various Maniola species, genitalia morphology is sometimes the only possibility to tell specimen apart. In this paper we describe diagnostic characters to distinguish different Maniola species by means of their genitalia. Included is also the first detailed description and illustration of the genitalia apparatus of the Sardinian endemic Maniola nurag. Further, we describe two Sardinian individuals with intermediate characteristics between Maniola nurag and Maniola jurtina, and propose that they are hybrids. Further, we shortly discuss the justification ofthe species status for the island endemics Maniola chia and Maniola cypricola.

Two years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, food value chains have undergone some remarkable adjustments, evolving to meet rapidly changing conditions. Their capacity to make these adjustments has depended on public investments in the logistics infrastructure and wholesale markets that form the structure of food systems, as well as public policies that facilitate efficient exchange and private sector innovations, the flow of food systems.Looking back, we can see that the initial food supply chain disruptions in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) were primarily caused by three COVID-19 responses:

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In 2016, the Royal Dutch Meteorological Office (KNMI) homogenized the daily temperature records for the Netherlands from 1901 to 1950 to allow a realistic comparison of the temperatures from 1901 to the present. The homogenizations for the main station De Bilt were carried out using a Percentile Matching Method (PMM) with one reference station and a 56-month reference period. In this study, it is shown that the corrections in the number of tropical days (maximum temperature ≥ 30 °C) depend strongly on the choice of the reference station and the length of the reference period. A total of 116 different variants of the homogenization of De Bilt were carried out, using all combinations of five reference stations, five reference periods, two ways to calculate percentiles, and two ways to smooth the data. The parameters used for the KNMI’s current homogenization of De Bilt result in a very sharp decrease of tropical days, which is not replicated by the majority of the 116 variants. Moreover, after homogenization, De Bilt appears to be an outlier compared to the other meteorological stations. Therefore, the current homogenized estimates of tropical days for De Bilt should be treated with considerable caution.